This made him an orator and a man of the people. In a word, the major was a rising character, and a popular character, and was in a fair way to be sent by the popular party to the State House of New York, if not in the end to Washington itself. But as a man's private prosperity does not always keep pace with his patriotic devotion to public affairs; and as fraudulent transactions have their downs as well as ups, the major was occasionally under a cloud. Hence, just now Mrs. Pawkins kept a boarding-house, and Major Pawkins rather `loafed' his time away than otherwise.
`You have come to visit our country, sir, at a season of great commercial depression,' said the major.
`At an alarming crisis,' said the colonel.
`At a period of unprecedented stagnation,' said Mr. Jefferson Brick.
`I am sorry to hear that,' returned Martin. `It's not likely to last, I hope?'
Martin knew nothing about America, or he would have known perfectly well that if its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.
`It's not likely to last, I hope?' said Martin.
`Well!' returned the major, `I expect we shall get along somehow, and come right in the end.'
`We are an elastic country,' said the Rowdy Journal.
`We are a young lion,' said Mr. Jefferson Brick.
`We have revivifying and vigorous principles within ourselves,' observed the major. `Shall we drink a bitter afore dinner, colonel?'
The colonel assenting to this proposal with great alacrity, Major Pawkins proposed an adjournment to a neighbouring bar-room, which, as he observed, was `only in the next block.' He then referred Martin to Mrs. Pawkins for all particulars connected with the rate of board and lodging, and informed him that he would have the pleasure of seeing that lady at dinner, which would soon be ready, as the dinner hour was two o'clock, and it only wanted a quarter now, This reminded him that if the bitter were to be taken at all, there was no time to lose; so he walked off without more ado, and left them to follow if they thought proper.
When the major rose from his rocking-chair before the stove, and so disturbed the hot air and balmy whiff of soup which fanned their brows, the odour of stale tobacco became so decidedly prevalent as to leave no doubt of its proceeding mainly from that gentleman's attire. Indeed, as Martin walked behind him to the bar-room, he could not help thinking that the great square major, in his list-lessness and langour, looked very much like a stale weed himself: such as might be hoed out of the public garden, with great advantage to the decent growth of that preserve, and tossed on some congenial dunghill.
They encountered more weeds in the bar-room, some of whom (being thirsty souls as well as dirty) were pretty stale in one sense, and pretty fresh in another. Among them was a gentleman who, as Martin gathered from the conversation that took place over the bitter, started that afternoon for the Far West on a six months' business tour, and who, as his outfit and equipment for this journey, had just such another shiny hat and just such another little pale valise as had composed the luggage of the gentleman who came from England in the Screw.
They were walking back very leisurely; Martin arm-in-arm with Mr. Jefferson Brick, and the major and the colonel side-by-side before them. when, as they came within a house or two of the major's residence, they heard a bell ringing violently. The instant this sound struck upon their ears, the colonel and the major darted off, dashed up the steps and in at the street-door (which stood ajar) like lunatics, while Mr. Jefferson Brick, detaching his ann from Martin's, made a precipitate dive in the same direction, and vanished also.
`Good Heaven!' thought Martin. `The premises are on fire! It was an alarm bell!'
But there was no smoke to be seen, nor any flame, nor was there any smell of fire. As Martin faltered on the pavement, three more gentlemen, with horror and agitation depicted in their faces, came plunging wildly round the street corner; jostled each other on the steps; struggled for an instant; and rushed into the house, a confused heap of arms and legs.
Unable to bear it any longer, Martin followed. Even in his rapid progress he was run dawn, thrust aside, and passed, by two more gentlemen, stark mad, as it appeared, with fierce excitement.
`Where is it?' cried Martin, breathlessly, to a negro whom he encountered in the passage.
`In a eatin room, sa. 'Kernell, sa, him kep a seat 'side himself, sa.'
`A seat!' cried Martin.
`For a dinnar, sa.'
Martin started at him for a moment, and burst into a hearty laugh; to which the negro, out of his natural good humour and desire to please, so heartily responded, that his teeth shone like a gleam of light. `You're the pleasantest fellow I have seen yet,' said Martin clapping him on the back, `and give me a better appetite than bitters.'
With this sentiment he walked into the dining-room and slipped into a chair next the colonel, which that gentleman (by this time nearly through his dinner) had turned down in reserve for him, with its back against the table.