SHIRTLESS

PHILOSOPHY.

BY DOUGLAS JERROLD, ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.

ADAM lay in bed, and with his heart in his ears, istened-listened, but heard nothing. A shadow fell upon his face; and, uttering an impatient groan or grunt, and hugging the blanket close around his neck, he swung himself, like a resolute pig, upon his side, and then sent forth a long-drawn sigh. Hapless Adam Buff!

Inexorable time, that cruel sandman, goes onward, and Adam sleeps. Oh, ye gentle ministers, who tune our dreaming brains with happy music-who feed the snoring hungry with apples fresh from Paradisewho take the fetters from the slave, and send him free as the wild antelope, bounding to his hut-who make the henpecked spouse, though sleeping near his gentle tyrant, a lordly Turk-who write on the prison walls of the poor debtor, "received in full of all demands"-what ever ye may be, wherever ye reside, we pray ye, for one hour at least, cheat poor Adam Buff! Bear him on your rainbow wings from an attic, once white-washed, in Seven Dials, to the verdant slope of the Cerra Duida; for there, saith the veracious Baron Humboldt, shirt trees grow fifty feet high! There, lay him down, under that most household blossom, that "hangs on the bough," and there, let him cast his gladdened eyes upwards, and see shirts, ready made, advertised on every spray. And there, to the sound of the Indian drum, let him see, disporting on the grass, men and maidens clothed-for in the Certa Duida the shirt hath no sex-in newly gathered garments, "the upper opening of which admits the head, and two lateral holes cut admit the arms!"* (The site of the garden of Eden hath been a favor. ite dispute with very many theologians, all equally well informed on the subject. Dutchmen have protested that it was somewhere near Amsterdam-and Rusetans have been found to give their votes for the neighborhood of Moscow. Humboldt, in his shirt tree, hath satisfactorily proved it not to be the Cerra Buida. Eden, however, brings us back to Buff.)

Are you up, Mr. Buff?" said a voice on the outside of the door.

Come in," said Adam, awakened by the querist. The door opened, and a dry, yellowish matron of some three score entered the room. From her perfect self-possession, it was evident that she was landlady of the domain. Did you see the fire, last night, Mr. Buff?" asked Mrs. Nox, the widow of a respecta ble baker.

I heard the engines," replied the philosopher. "The sky was like the last day," said the landlady.

*See Humboldt's "Personal Narrative"

"It isn't known yet-but such a loss of property! Two sugar bake-houses, a distiller's, besides the house of a pawnbroker. Lost every thing-for I do hear there was nothing insured," said Mrs. Nox.

"Very sad, indeed; but this is human life, Mrs. Nox," observed Adam, with commendable composure.

"It is indeed, Mr. Buff," and the landlady sighed. "Yes, this is life! We rise early, and go to bed late-we toil and we sweat-we scrape up and we lay by-we trick and we cheat-we use light weights and short measures-"

"It's as true as the Bible," said the baker's widow. "We harass our reason to its utmost to arrive at wealth-and then, when we think we have built our nest for life, when we have lined it with wool and gilded the outside, and taxed our fancy for our best ease-why, what comes of it?-Molly, the housemaid, drops a lighted candle-snuff among the shavings, -a cat carries a live coal from under the fire among the linen-the watchman springs his rattle-and, after a considerable time, engines play upon our ruin. Yes, Mrs. Nox, this is life; and as all of us who live must put up with life, grieving's a folly, Mrs. Nox." Thus spoke Adam.

"It's true-it's true, Mr. Buff-but yet to have a great deal, and to lose it all," said the landlady. "We should always keep philosophy," said Adam Buff.

"A fire-escape?" asked Mrs. Nox, doubtingly; and then, with a sudden illumination-"Oh, I seereligion."

"The religion of the heathens. For my part, I feel if the warehouses had been my own, I could have looked at the devouring element, without ever forgetting myself."

"You may call it devouring, Mr. Buff,-nothing came amiss to it. Poor Mrs. Savon!—"

"My laundress!" exclaimed Adam, his feet plunging spasmodically under the blanket.

"She lived at the back-all her linen destroyed," said Mrs. Nox.

"Her linen!" echoed Adam Buff, turning very white. "What! all?-every thing?"

"Every rag," replied Mrs. Nox, with peculiar emphasis.

Adam stretched his legs, and his jaw fell. Poor

"I believe, sir," said the stranger, "you are Mr. roundly assert that he always understood the object Buff?"

We feel our utter inability to describe the storm that here ensued-the indignation of Mr. Butler, the abuse of the porter. At length, when the tempest "I will wait upon you, sir, at-" was at its height, Jonas, laying his three right fingers "No-no-no. I couldn't think of parting with on his left hand, exclaimed in a voice of deep deter you: when you are dressed, we'll go together," said mination-" Very well-very well; all I say is this, the visiter, and Adam's face looked suddenly frost-fellow-all I say is this; I'll pay the imposition-pay bitten. "But, bless me! do you rise without a fire, it with pleasure, if—if you can show me the philosothis weather?” phy of it."

case, and Mr. Butler, turning in the passage, saw Buff stealing as sofily down as though his landlady was sick, and he feared to disturb her. Buff was a heavy man, and yet he trod as upon the points of nails, and shrugged his shoulders, and vainly tried to compose his wrinkling features. So walks a saint who hath lost his outer cuticle.

two stood, and meditated, though with very different feelings, on the devastation. Mr. Butler eyed the scene with the tranquillity of a philosopher who had lost nothing by the calamity; glancing at the blackened walls and smouldering rafters with admirable self-possession. Adam, however, was made of weaker flesh; for there was visible emotion in his face, as he

Mr. Butler and Adam turned into the street. "A tried to make out the attic of his laundress from the dreadful fire last night," said Mr. Butler. fifty domestic nooks, now laid open to the profanation of the public eye.

Buff clapt his finger to the top button of his coat, lifted the collar a little about his neck, and answered, "Very destructive, indeed."

"A fine property but yesterday, and now," said Mr. Butler, taking snuff," a heap of ruins." "Gone to tinder," cried Adam, brooding on his own peculiar loss.

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Yes it is hard to have our household gods playupon-to see our home, filled with all home's sweets, blazing like the pile that burns the phoenix,"-observed Mr. Butler very profoundly. "To be stripped perhaps to the skin in this inclement season," and But

Butler and Buff walked on. One moment, thoughtful reader. Behold the pair as they recede; could you not, even without our preface, divine from their habits, their separate bearing, the distinctive charactered of each? Look at Jonas Butler; a thickish, middlesized person, in lustrous black-his hat as smooth and jetty as a raven's wing-a line of cambric snow above his coat-his foot, taking the pavement as were hisler looked on Buff, who shivered at the touching supown freehold and, in every limb and gesture of the position. And yet, Mr. Puff, what is nakedness, man, self-comfort, self-content. Now, look at Adam; when we have philosophy?" though a full head higher than his patron, he does not look so tall-he does not walk, but touches the earth as if by sufferance; and there seems at work in his whole frame, an accommodating meanness to lessen himself to the dimensions of his companion. To walk at his full height seems to him a presumption-he bends and limps out of pure courtesy; to make nothing of himself would be little more than to show a due respect to his associate. Never mind Buff's coatthat is a vulgar sign and type of misery-heed not his hat, that hath braved as many storms as a witch's sieve-shut your eyes to the half-sole of the left shoe-but look at the man, or men, and tell us if ye do not look upon a prosperous patron who has lured a starveling from his garret by the savory steam of a promised dinner. It is so? Yes, sir, it is. Fie, reader! fie: it is a philosopher leading a philosopher! Walk on, Adam Buff! and for the urchin trundling his hoop, now sometimes at thy side, sometimes before, sometimes behind thee; frown not on him he is not what he seems. No; he is not a smutch faced schoolboy, but fortune in disguise-the hoop is her dread wheel; and thou, henceforth, art her chosen leman.

Adam was about to answer in, doubtless, a deeply feeling strain, when an alarm of a falling wall suddenly brought the crowd upon him. Mr. Butler had already taken to his heels, showing that philosophy can sometimes run like an ostrich—but Buff, either not possessing so much philosophy, or having greater bulk, was slower in his motion, and thus unluckily impeded the retreat of a gigantic drayman, who revenged himself of the impediment by dealing out to Adam an impressive blow on the cheek. Many of the mob who saw the outrage, saw that the blood of Buff was up, for he turned round, looking death, and instinctively clenching his fists. A fight! A fight!" exclaimed the crowd in a burst of pleasure, and some providently called for "a ring." The drayman stood prepared. Mr. Butler, who had philosophically looked on, approached Adam; it was an eventful moment for Buff, who stood breathing heavily, and measuring the figure of his assailant. "Better strip, sir,” said a disinterested counsellor from the crowd-whilst another, who had stuck his tobacco pipe in his hat-band to devote himself more entirely to the service, said in the blandest tones, his eyes twinkling up in the face of Buff" I'll hold your coat, sir." The offer seemed to "Sir,―he has not a shirt to his back!" How often decide Adam, for he placed his hand to his top button, does this avowal convey the dreariest picture of hu- and when the crowd hoped to see a fine anatomy, man destitution. All our sympathies are expected to Buff pulled still higher the collar of his coat, cast a be up and crying for the victim. A whole nunnery look of scorn on the grinning drayman, and loudly might have wept for Adam; yet was he, in his dear-proclaimed him to be unworthy of his notice. Saying est want, most rich. It is true, the conflagration of the preceding night had put our hero to the coldest shift that poverty can lay on human flesh; and yet, like thrice-tried gold, he came forth pure and glittering from the fire!

CHAPTER II.

"HA! the fire!" exclaimed Mr. Butler, pausing and directing the attention of Adam to the smoking ruins. "Bless me! very extensive, indeed," and the

which, he tried to step from the mob who closed about him, and with derisive yells and hootings, hung upon his heels. However, the reward of Buff was near; for Butler made up to him, and squeezing his his hand, exclaimed, “I honor you, Mr. Buff-I reverence you; you have shown a philosophy worthy of old Greece;" (it was lucky for Adam, he could not show a shirt,) "you have shown yourself superior to the low and ignorant assaults of ten thousand devils!" shouted Mr. Butler, in a higher key, and leapt like a kangaroo. And with all his philosophy, well he might; for the individual who had offered to hold

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Adam's coat, having been repulsed in his kindness, | Struck by the contrast, in the humility of his soul he had seized the hose of one of the fire-engines, and felt for a moment a creature of a different species to with unerring aim, had deluged not only Buff, but his that inhabiting the nook he stood in. "Thus it is," patron. A roar of laughter from the crowd applaud- thought Adam, bending his melancholy eyes upon the ed the skill of the marksman. Mr. Butler stood drip-glowing carpet-" thus it is, one man walks all his ping and melancholy as a penguin. Three times he life in a silver slipper upon flowers, whilst anothercalled at the top of his voice "a constable!" and yes another hetter than he," Adam could not suppress constable" was kindly echoed by the mob. How the comparison, "treads upon sanded pine from the ever, no constable appearing, Mr. Butler called the cradle to the grave.. One man is doomed to feed his next best thing he called a coach. The coachman eyes with luscious pictures”—(Mr. Butler had on his obeyed, and descending from his box, opened the walls some charming fruit-pieces)" whilst another door for a moment, however, he paused at the reek-turns pale at a milk score." These truisms were un ing freight before him-however, humanity and his fare prevailed, and he admitted the half-drowned men, and touching his hat, and striking-to the door, he asked if he should drive "to the Humane Society?" "To street," said Mr. Butler, being too wet to understand the attempted joke. Away rattled the coach, the wags among the crowd shouting-"do you want umbrellas, gentlemen?" "I say, coachman why didn't you wring 'em before you put 'em in?" Mr. Butler sat as silent as the image of a water god; and Buff uttered no word, but shook like a poodle new from the tub. The coach arrived at Mr. Butler's house. "Well, sir, what is your fare?" asked Mr. Butler, freezingly.

worthy of a philosopher—but then, Adam had had no breakfast: they were certainly beneath a man des. pising all creature-comforts, but then Buff was soaked to the skin. This latter accident was but too evident, for he stood to the fire, enveloped in steam; Solomon's genii, released from their brazen vessels, never rose in clouds of denser vapor: an utilitarian would have wept-that is, had there been any use in tears-to have witnessed such a waste of motive power.

"Bless me! what a smother!" suddenly exclaimed a feminine voice, and Buff, at the sound, cast his coattails off his arms, and coughing, loomed a little out of the surrounding fog. The speaker, seeing it was not

"Why, sir-let me see-six shillings," said the the chimney, but a gentleman who smoked, was about coachman, very confidently.

"Six shillings!" cried Buff-" why, your fare is-" "I know what my fare is for passengers-but we charge what we like for luggage."

to let fall a curtsey, when Mr. Butler, entering in a hurry, prevented the ceremony. "Mrs. Black, my sister," said the host, "Mr. Buff;" and the introduction over, Mr. Butler, with a warm cloth morn

Luggage!" exclaimed Buff, and he looked round ing-gown upon his arm, made up to his guest. "Now, for the impedimenta.

my dear sir, you had better put off your coat; you see, I-I have changed," and Mr. Butler complacently glanced at his rich, ruby-colored dressing-gown, lined with fur to his toes. Come, or you'll catch your death of cold," and the benignant host pressed the garment upon Adam.

"Cold, sir?" said Buff, with an inexpressible smile of contempt at the suggestion-"I hope, sir, I have learned to subdue any such weakness."

Nay, now, I insist-you are wet through-you must take off your coat," said the hospitable Mr. But

'Walk in-walk in-excuse me-but a minute," said Mr. Butler, in broken syllables, shaking with cold, and preceding Buff into a most comfortable parlor, wherein a fire glowed a grateful welcome :-the host hurriedly stirred up the coals, and instantly quitted the apartment. Buff, being left alone, silentlyler. "unpacked his heart" against the ruffian who had drenched him—then eyed the fire-and every man believing that he can poke a fire better than his neighbor, again vehemently stirred it, and expanded his broad back to the benign influence of the caloric. As it crept up his anatomy, his heart dilated with hopes of good fortune; and his ire against his enemy began to escape with the steam. "It was well for him I had no shirt," thought Adam. (Simple Buff! it was better for thyself. Thou mightest, it is true, have been declared the conqueror of a drayman-when thy very destitution palmed thee off a victor of thine own passion. The juggling of fortune! when what seems to the unthinking world pure magnanimity, may only be a want of shirt.)

Adam stood, with all the fire at his back, and all his philosophy in his eyes. He surveyed the apartment, furnished with a most religious regard to comfort, and thought of his own home in Seven Dials.

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Buff put on a still more serious look, assuring his patron, that even if he felt the wet inconvenientand which he farther begged to assure him he did not-still he would keep on the reeking garment as a matter of principle. Consider, sir," said Buff, securing the top button of his coat, and bending his brow" consider, sir, what a miserable thing is man, if a pint, nay, a quart of water is to distress him. To despise the influence of the elements has ever been my notion of true philosophy. When we think of the Scythians, sir-of the Parthians-nay, of our own painted progenitors, the ancient Britons—when we reflect on their contempt of the seasons—of the blaze of summer, and the ice of winter-how inex pressibly little does man, that lord of all created things, appear, creeping beneath an umbrella."

"As you please, Mr. Buff," said Butler, astonished and delighted at the stoicism of his guest, “as you please; though I think you practise a little too se