MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.



long in the sleeves, and short in the legs ; soiled
brown stockings, and laced shoes. His com-
plexion, naturally muddy, was rendered muddier
by too strict an economy of soap and water ;
and the same observation will apply to the wash-
able part of his attire, which he might have
changed with comfort to himself, and gratifica-
tion to his friends. He was about five-and-
thirty ; was crushed and jammed up in a heap,
under the shade of a large green cotton um-
brella; and ruminated over his tobacco-plug
like a cow.

He was not singular, to be sure, in these
respects ; for every gentleman on board appeared
to have had a difference with his laundress, and
to have left off washing himself in early youth.
Every gentleman, too, was perfectly stopped up
with tight plugging, and was dislocated in the
greater part of his joints. But about this gen-
tleman there was a peculiar air of sagacity and
wisdom, which convinced Martin that he was
no common character : and this turned out to
be the case.

"How do you do, sir?" said a voice in
Martin's ear.

" How do you do, sir ? " said Martin.
It was a tall thin gentleman who spoke to
him, with a carpet-cap on, and a long loose coat
of green baize, ornamented about the pockets
with black velvet.

" You air from Europe, sir?"
" I am," said Martin.
" You air fortunate, sir."
Martin thought so too : but he soon dis-
covered that the gentleman and he attached
different meanings to this remark.

" You air fortunate, sir, in having an oppor-
tunity of beholding our Elijah Pogram, sir."

" Your Elijahpogram !" said Martin, thinking
it was all one word, and a building of some
sort.

" Yes, sir."

Martin tried to look as if he understood him,
but he couldn't make it out.

" Yes, sir," repeated the gentleman. " Our
Elijah Pogram, sir, is, at this minute, identically
settin' by the en-gine biler."

The gentleman under the umbrella put his
right forefinger to his eyebrow, as if he were
revolving schemes of state.

" That is Elijah Pogram, is it?" said Martin.
" Yes, sir," replied the other. " That is Elijah
Pogram."

" Dear me ! " said Martin. " I am astonished."
Put he had not the least idea who this Elijah
Pogram was ; having never heard the name in
all his life.



" If the biler of this vessel was Toe bust, sir,"
said his new acquaintance, " and Toe bust now,
this would be a fesTival day in the calendar of
despotism ; pretty nigh equalling sir, in its effects
upon the human race, our Fourth of glorious
July. Yes, sir, that is the Honourable Elijah
Pogram, Member of Congress ; one of the
master-minds of our country, sir. There is a
brow', sir, there !"

" Quite remarkable," said Martin.

" Yes, sir. Our own immortal Chiggle, sir, is
said to have observed, when he made the cele-
brated Pogram statter in marble, which rose so
much con-test and preju-dice in Europe, that
the brow was more than mortal. This was be-
fore the Pogram Defiance, and was, therefore, a
pre-diction, cruel smart."

"What is the Pogram Defiance?" asked
Martin, thinking, perhaps, it was the sign of a
public-house.

" An o-ration, sir," returned his friend.

" Oh ! to be sure," cried Martin. '" What am
I thinking of ! It defied — "

" It defied the world, sir," said the other,
gravely. " Defied the world in general to com-
pete with our country upon any hook : and
devellop'd our internal resources for making
war upon the universal airth. You would like
to know Elijah Pogram, sir?"

" If you please," said Martin.

" Mr. Pogram," said the stranger — Mr. Pogram
having overheard every word of the dialogue —
" this is a gentleman from Europe, sir : from
England, sir. But gen'rous ene-mies may meet
upon the neutral sile of private life, I think."

The languid Mr. Pogram shook hands with
Martin, like a clock-work figure that was just
running down. But lie made amends by chewing
like one that was just wound up.

" Mr. Pogram," said the introducer, " is a
public servant, sir. When Congress is recessed,
he makes himself acquainted with those free
United States, of which he is the gifted son."

It occurred to Martin, that if the Honourable
Elijah Pogram had stayed at home, and sent his
shoes upon a tour, they would have answered
the same purpose ; for they were the only part
of him in a situation to see anything.

In course of time, however, Mr. Pogram rose ;
and having ejected certain plugging conse-
quences which would have impeded his articu-
lation, took up a position where there was some-
thing to lean against, and began to talk to
Martin : shading himself with the green umbrella
all the time.

As he began with the words, " How do you
like — ?" Martin took him up, and said :



POGRAMMANIA.



271



'•The country, I presume?"

"Yes, sir," said Elijah Pogram. A knot of
passengers gathered round to hear what fol-
lowed ; and Martin heard his friend say, as he
whispered to another friend, and rubbed his
hands, " Pogram will smash him into sky-blue
fits, I know !"

" Why," said Martin, after a moment's hesita-
tion, " I have learned by experience, that you
take an unfair advantage of a stranger, when you
ask that question. You don't mean it to be
answered, except in one way. Now, I don't
choose to answer it in that way, for I cannot
honestly answer it in that way. And therefore,
I would rather not answer it at all."

But Mr. Pogram was going to make a great
speech in the next session about foreign rela-
tions, and was going to write strong articles on
the subject ; and as he greatly favoured the free
and independent custom (a very harmless and
agreeable one) of procuring information of any
sort in any kind of confidence, and afterwards
perverting it publicly in any manner that hap-
pened to suit him, he had determined to get at
Martin's opinions somehow or other. For, if he
could have got nothing out of him, he would
have had to invent it for him, and that would
have been laborious. He made a mental note
of his answer, and went in again.

" You are from Eden, sir? How did you like
Eden?"

Martin said what he thought of that part of
the country, in pretty strong terms.

" It is strange," said Pogram, looking round
upon the group, " this hatred of our country,
and her Institutions ! This national antipathy
is deeply rooted in the British mind ! "

" Good Heaven, sir," cried Martin. " Is the
Eden Land Corporation, with Mr. Scadder at
its head, and all the misery it has worked, at
its door, an Institution of America ? A part of
any form of government that ever was known or
heard of?"

" I con-sider the cause of this to be," said
Pogram, looking round again and taking himself
up where Martin had interrupted him, " partly
jealousy and preju-dice, and partly the nat'ral
unfitness of the British people to appreciate
the ex-alted Institutions of our native land.
I expect, sir," turning to Martin again, " that
a gentleman named Chollop happened in
upon you during your lo-cation in the town of
Eden?"

" Yes," answered Martin ; " but my friend
can answer this better than I can, for I was very
ill at the time. Mark ! the gentleman is speak-
ing of Mr. Chollop."



" Oh. Yes, sir. Yes. / see him," observed

Mark.

"A splendid example of our na-tive raw mate-
rial, sir?" said Pogram, interrogatively.
" Indeed, sir !" cried Mark.
The Honourable Elijah Pogram glanced at his
friends as though he would have said, "Observe
this ! See what follows ! " and they rendered
tribute to the Pogram genius, by a gentle
murmur.

" Our fellow-countryman is a model of a man,
quite fresh from- Natur's mould !" said Pogram.
with enthusiasm. " He is a true-born child of
this free hemisphere ! Verdant as the mountains
of our country ; bright and flowing as our
mineral Licks ; unspiled by withering conven-
tionalities as air our broad and boundless
Perearers ! Rough he may be. So air our Barrs.
Wild he may be. So air our Buffalers. But he
is a child of Natur', and a child of Freedom ;
and his boastful answer to the Despot and the
Tyrant is, that his bright home is in the Settin'
Sun."

Part of this referred to Chollop, and part to a
western post-master, who, being a public de-
faulter not very long before (a character not at
all uncommon in America), had been removed
from office ; and on whose behalf Mr. Pogram
(he voted for Pogram) had thundered the last
sentence from his seat in Congress, at the head
of an unpopular President. It told brilliantly ;
for the bystanders were delighted, and one of
them said to Martin, " that he guessed he had
now seen something of the eloquential aspect
of our country, and was chawed up pritty
small."

Mr. Pogram waited until his hearers were
calm again, before he said to Mark :
"You do not seem to coincide, sir?"
" Why," said Mark, " I didn't like him much ;
and that's the truth, sir. I thought he was a
bully; and I didn't admire his carryin' them
murderous little persuaders, and being so ready
to use 'em."

" It's singler ! " said Pogram, lifting his um-
brella high enough to look all round from under
it. " It's strange ! You observe the settled
opposition to our Institutions which pervades
the British mind !"

"What an extraordinary people you are!"
cried Martin. " Are Mr. Chollop and the class
he represents, an Institution here ? Are pistols
with revolving barrels, sword-sticks, bowie-knives,
and such things, Institutions on which you pride
yourselves ? Are bloody duels, brutal combats,
savage assaults, shooting down and stabbing in
the streets, your Institutions ! Why, I shall



» *i 2



MAR TIN CIIUZZLE J J IT.



hear next, that Dishonour and Fraud are among
the Institutions of the great republic ! "

The moment the words passed his lips, the
Honourable Elijah Pogram looked round again.

" This morbid hatred of our Institutions," he
observed, " is quite a study for the physcholo-
gical observer. He's alludin' to Repudiation
now !"

" Oh ! You may make anything an Institu-
tion if you like," said Martin, laughing, "and I
confess you had me there, for you certainly have
made that, one. But the greater part of these
things are one Institution with us, and we call it
by the generic name of Old Bailey ! "

' The bell being rung for dinner at this moment,
everybody ran away into the cabin, whither the
Honourable Elijah Pogram fled with such preci-
pitation that he forgot his umbrella was up, and
fixed it so tightly in the cabin door that it
could neither be let down nor got out. For a
minute or so this accident created a perfect
rebellion among the hungry passengers behind,
who, seeing the dishes and hearing the knives
and forks at work, well knew what would happen
unless they got there instantly, and were nearly
mad : while several virtuous citizens at the table
were in deadly peril of choking themselves in
their unnatural efforts to get rid of all the meat
before these others came.

They carried the umbrella by storm, however,
and rushed in at the breach. The Honourable
Elijah Pogram and Martin found themselves,
after a severe struggle, side by side, as they
might have come together in the pit of a London
theatre ; and for four whole minutes afterwards,
Pogram was snapping up great blocks of every-
thing he could get hold of, like a raven. When
he had taken this unusually protracted dinner,
he began to talk to Martin ; and begged him
not to have the least delicacy in speaking with
perfect freedom to him, for he was a calm phi-
losopher. Which Martin was extremely glad to
hear; for he had begun to speculate on Elijah
being a disciple of that other school of repub-
lican philosophy, whose noble sentiments are
carved with knives upon a pupil's body, and
written, not with pen and ink, but tar and
feathers.

"• What do you think of my countrymen who
are present, sir?" inquired Elijah Pogram.

" Oh ! very pleasant," said Martin.

They were a very pleasant party. No man
had spoken a word ; every one had been intent,
as usual, on his own private gorging ; and the
greater part of the company were decidedly dirty
feeders.

The Honourable Elijah Pogram looked at



Martin as if he thought " You don't mean that,
I know !" And he was soon confirmed in this
opinion.

Sitting opposite to them was a gentleman in a
high state of tobacco, who wore quite a little
beard, composed of the overflowings of that
weed, as they had dried about his mouth and
chin ; so common an ornament that it would
scarcely have attracted Martin's observation, but
that this good citizen, burning to assert his
equality against all comers, sucked his knife for
some moments, and made a cut with it at the
butter, just as Martin was in the act of taking
some. There was a juiciness about the deed
that might have sickened a scavenger.

When Elijah Pogram (to whom this was an
every-day incident) saw that Martin put the
plate away, and took no butter, he was quite
delighted, and said :

" Well ! The morbid hatred of you British to
the Institutions of our country, is as-TONishing ! "

"Upon my life!" cried Martin, in his turn,
" this is the most wonderful community that
ever existed. A man deliberately makes a hog
of himself, and that's an Institution !"

" We have no time to ac-quire forms, sir,"
said Elijah Pogram.

"Acquire!" cried Martin. "But it's not a
question of acquiring anything. It's a question
of losing the natural politeness of a savage, and
that instinctive good breeding which admonishes
one man not to offend and disgust another.
Don't you think that man over the way, for in-
stance, naturally knows better, but considers it
a very fine and independent thing to be a brute
in small matters?"

" He is a na-tive of our country, and is
nat'rally bright and spry, of course," said Mr.
Pogram.

"Now, observe what this comes to, Mr.
Pogram," pursued Martin. " The mass of your
countrymen begin by stubbornly neglecting little
social observances, which have nothing to do
with gentility, custom, usage, government, or
country, but are acts of common, decent, natural,
human politeness. You abet them in this, by
resenting all attacks upon their social offences
as if they were a beautiful national feature.
From disregarding small obligations they come
in regular course to disregard great ones; and
so refuse to pay their debts. What they may do,
or what they may refuse to do next, I don't
know ; but any man may see if he will, that it
will be something following in natural succes-
sion, and a part of one great growth, which is
rotten at the root."

The mind of Mr. Pogram was too philosophical



DISAPPOINTMENT OF CAPTAIN KEDGICK.



273



to see this, so they went on deck again, where,
resuming his former post, he chewed until he
was in a lethargic state, amounting to insensi-
bility.

After a weary voyage of several days, they
came again to that same wharf where Mark had
been so nearly left behind, on the night of start-
ing for Eden. Captain Kedgick, the landlord,
was standing there, and was greatly surprised to
see them coming from the boat.



"Why, what the 'carnal!" cried the captain.
" Well ! I do admire at this, I do ! "

" We can stay at your house until to-morrow,
captain, I suppose?" said Martin.

" I reckon you can stay there for a twelve-
month if you like," retorted Kedgick coolly.
" But our people won't best like your coming
back."

"Won't like it, Captain Kedgick!" said
Martin.




WHY, WHAT THE 'TARNAL ! " CRIED THE CAPTAIN.



DO ADJURE AT THIS, I DO!



" They did ex-pect you was a-going to settle,"
Kedgick answered, as he shook his head.
" They've been took in, you can't deny !"

" What do you mean?" cried Martin.

" You didn't ought to have received 'em,"
said the captain. " No you didn't !"

" My good friend," returned Martin, " did I
want to receive them ? Was it any act of mine?
Didn't you tell me they would rile up, and that
I should be flayed like a wild cat — and threaten
all kinds of vengeance, if I didn't receive them?"

" I don't know about that," returned the cap-
Martin Chuzzlewit, 18.



tain. " But when our people's frills is out,
they're starched up pretty stiff, I tell you ! "

With that, he fell into the rear to walk with
Mark, while Martin and Elijah Pogram went on
to the National.

"We've come back alive, you see!" said
Mark.

" It ain't the thing I did expect," the captain
grumbled. " A man ain't got no right to be a
public man unless he meets the public views.
Our fashionable people wouldn't have attended
his le-vee, if they had know'd it."

3i



274



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.



Nothing mollified the captain, who persisted
in taking it very ill, that they had not both died
in Eden. The boarders at the National felt
strongly on the subject too ; but it happened by
good fortune that they had not much time to
think about this grievance, for it was suddenly
determined to pounce upon the Honourable
Elijah Pogram, and give him a le-vee forthwith.

As the general evening meal of the house was
over before the arrival of the boat, Martin, Mark,
and Pogram were taking tea and fixings at the
public table by themselves, when the deputation
entered, to announce this honour : consisting of
six gentlemen boarders, and a very shrill boy.

" Sir !" said the spokesman.

" Mr. Pogram !" cried the shrill boy.

The spokesman thus reminded of the shrill
boy's presence, introduced him. " Doctor Ginery
Dunkle, sir. A gentleman of great poetical
elements. He has recently jined us here, sir,
and is an acquisition to us, sir, I do assure you.
Yes, sir. Mr. Jodd, sir. Mr. Izzard, sir. Mr.
Julius Bib, sir."

" Julius Washington Merryweather Bib," said
the gentleman himself to himself.

" I beg your pardon, sir. Excuse- me. Mr.
Julius Washington Merryweather Bib, sir ; a
gentleman in the lumber line, sir, and much
esteemed. Colonel Groper, sir. Pro-fessor
Piper, sir. My own name, sir, is Oscar Buffum."

Each man took one slide forward as he was
named; butted at the Honourable Elijah Pogram
with his head ; shook hands, and slid back again.
The introductions being completed, the spokes-
man resumed.

"Sir!"

"Mr. Pogram !" cried the shrill boy.

" Perhaps," said the spokesman, with a hope-
less look, '"you will be so good, Doctor Ginery
Dunkle, as to charge yourself with the execution
of our little office, sir?"

As there was nothing the shrill boy desired
more, he immediately stepped forward.

"Mr. Pogram! Sir! A handful Of your
fellow citizens, sir, hearing Of your arrival at the
National Hotel, and feeling the patriotic cha-
racter Of your public services, wish, sir, to have
the gratification Of beholding you, and mixing
with you, sir ; and unbending with you, sir, in
those moments which — "

" Air, : ' suggested Buffum.

" Which air so peculiarly the lot, sir, Of our
great and happy country.''

"Hear!" cried Colonel Groper, in a loud
voice. " Good ! Hear him ! Good !"

"And therefore, sir," pursued the Doctor,
" they request ; as A mark Of their respect ; the



honour of your company at a little le-Yee, sir, in
the ladies' ordinary, at eight o'clock."

Mr. Pogram bowed and said :

" Fellow-countrymen !"

"Good!" cried the Colonel. "Hear him!
Good : "

Mr. Pogram bowed to the Colonel individually,
and then resumed :

" Your approbation of my labours in the com-
mon cause, goes to my heart. At all times and
in all places ; in the ladies' ordinary, My friends,
and in the Battle Field — "

" Good, very good ! Hear him ! Hear him !"
said the Colonel.

"The name Of Pogram will be proud to jine
you. And may it, My friends, be written on My
tomb, ' He was a member of the Con-gress of
our common country, and was ac-Tive in his
trust.' "

" The Com-mittee, sir," said the shrill boy,
" will wait upon you at five minutes afore eight.
I take My leave, sir !"

Mr. Pogram shook hands with him, and every-
body else, once more ; and when they came back
again at five minutes before eight, they said, one
by one, in a melancholy voice, " How do you
do, sir?" and shook hands with Mr. Pogram all
over again, as if he had been abroad for a twelve-
month in the meantime, and they met now at a
funeral.

But, by this time, Mr. Pogram had freshened
himself up, and had composed his hair and
features after the Pogram statue", so that any one
with half an eye might cry out, " There he is !
as he delivered the Defiance !" The Committee
were embellished also ; and when they entered
the ladies' ordinary in a body, there was much
clapping of hands from ladies and gentlemen,
accompanied by cries of "Pogram! Pogram!"
and some standing up on chairs to see him.

The object of the popular caress looked round
the room as he walked up it, and smiled : at the
same time observing to the shrill boy, that he
knew something of the beauty of the daughters
of their common country, but had never seen it
in such lustre and perfection as at that moment.
Which the shrill boy put in the paper next day ;
to Elijah Pogram's great surprise.

" We will re-quest you, sir, if you please," said
Buffum, laying hands on Mr. Pogram as if he
were taking his measure for a coat, " to stand up
with your back agin the wall right in the furthest
corner, that there may be more room for our
fellow cit-izens. If you could set your back
right slap agin that curtain-peg, sir, keeping your
kit leg everlastingly behind the stove, we should
be fixed quite slick."



POGRAM IN THE CORNER.



! 75



Mr. Pogram did as he was told, and wedged
himself into such a little corner, that the Pogram
statue wouldn't have known him.

The entertainments of the evening then began.
Gentlemen brought ladies up, and brought them-
selves up, and brought each other up ; and asked
Elijah Pogram what he thought of this political
question, and what he thought of that; and
looked at him, and looked at one another, and
seemed very unhappy indeed. The ladies on
tlie chairs looked at Elijah Pogram through their
glasses, and said audibly, " I wish he'd speak.
Why don't he speak ? Oh, do ask him to speak ! "
And Elijah Pogram looked sometimes at the
ladies and sometimes elsewhere, delivering sena-
torial opinions, as he was asked for them. But
the great end and object of the meeting seemed
to be, not to let Elijah Pogram out of the corner
on any account : so there they kept him hard
and fast.

A great bustle at the door, in the course of
the evening, announced the arrival of some re-
markable person ; and immediately afterwards
an elderly gentleman, much excited, was seen to
precipitate himself upon the crowd, and battle
his way towards the Honourable Elijah Pogram.
Martin, who had found a snug place of observa-
tion in a distant corner, where he stood with
Mark beside him (for he did not so often forget
him now as formerly, though he still did some-
times), thought he knew this gentleman, but had
no doubt of it, when he cried as loud as he could,
with his eyes starting out of his head :
"Sir, Mrs. Hominy !"

" Lord bless that woman, Mark. She has
turned up again !"

" Here she comes, sir," answered Mr. Tapley.
" Pogram knows her. A public character !
Always got her eye upon her country, sir ! If
that there lady's husband is of my opinion, what
a jolly old gentleman he must be ! "

A lane was made; and Mrs. Hominy, with
the aristocratic stalk, the pocket handkerchief,
the clasped hands, and the classical cap, came
slowly up it, in a procession of one. Mr. Pogram
testified emotions of delight on seeing her, and a
general hush prevailed. For it was known that
when a woman like Mrs. Hominy encountered a
man like Pogram, something interesting must
be said.

Their first salutations were exchanged in a
voice too low to reach the impatient ears of the
throng ; but they soon became audible, for Mrs.
Hominy felt her position, and knew what was
expected of her.

Mrs. H. was hard upon him at first ; and put
him through a rigid catechism, in reference to a



certain vote he had given, which she had found
it necessary, as the mother of the modern
Gracchi, to deprecate in a line by itself, set up
expressly for the purpose in German text. But
Mr. Pogram evading it by a well-timed allusion
to the star-spangled banner, which, it appeared,
had the remarkable peculiarity of flouting the
breeze whenever it was hoisted where the wind
blew, she forgave him. They now enlarged on
certain questions of tariff, commercial treaty,
boundary, importation and exportation, with
great effect. And Mrs. Hominy not only talked,
as the saying is, like a book, but actually did talk
her own books, word for word.

" My ! what is this ? " cried Mrs. Hominy,
opening a little note which was handed her by