第217章

`Pretty well, sir; pretty well,' said Mark.

`If this ain't Mr. Chuzzlewit, ain't it!' exclaimed the visitor `How do you git along, sir?'

Martin shook his head, and drew the blanket over it involuntarily; for he felt that Hannibal was going to spit; and his eye, as the song says, was upon him.

`You need not regard me, sir,' observed Mr. Chollop, complacently. `I am fever-proof, and likewise agur.'

`Mine was a more selfish motive,' said Martin, looking out again. `I was afraid you were going to --'

`I can calc'late my distance, sir,' returned Mr. Chollop, `to an inch.'

With a proof of which happy faculty he immediately favoured him `I re-quire, sir,' said Hannibal, `two foot clear in a circ'lar di-rection, and can engage my-self toe keep within it. I have gone ten foot, in a circ'lar di-rection, but that was for a wager.'

`I hope you won it, sir,' said Mark.

`Well, sir, I realised the stakes,' said Chollop. `Yes, sir.'

He was silent for a time, during which he was actively engaged in the formation of a magic circle round the chest on which he sat. When it was completed, he began to talk again.

`How do you like our country, sir?' he inquired, looking at Martin.

`Not at all,' was the invalid's reply.

Chollop continued to smoke without the least appearance of emotion, until he felt disposed to speak again. That time at length arriving, he took his pipe from his mouth, and said:

`I am not surprised to hear you say so. It re-quires An elevation, and A preparation of the intellect. The mind of man must be prepared for Freedom, Mr. Co.'

He addressed himself to Mark: because he saw that Martin, who wished him to go, being already half-mad with feverish irritation, which the droning voice of this new horror rendered almost insupportable, had closed his eyes, and turned on his uneasy bed.

`A little bodily preparation wouldn't be amiss, either, would it, sir,' said Mark, `in the case of a blessed old swamp like this?'

`Do you con-sider this a swamp, sir?' inquired Chollop gravely.

`Why yes, sir,' returned Mark. `I haven't a doubt about it myself.'

`The sentiment is quite Europian,' said the major, `and does not surprise me: what would your English millions say to such a swamp in England, sir?'

`They'd say it was an uncommon nasty one, I should think, said Mark;

`and that they would rather be inoculated for fever in some other way.'

`Europian!' remarked Chollop, with sardonic pity. `Quite Europian!'

And there he sat. Silent and cool, as if the house were his; smoking away like a factory chimney.

Mr. Chollop was, of course, one of the most remarkable men in the country; but he really was a notorious person besides. He was usually described by his friends, in the South and West, as `a splendid sample of our na-tive raw material, sir,' and was much esteemed for his devotion to rational Liberty; for the better propagation whereof he usually carried a brace of revolving pistols in his coat pocket, with seven barrels a-piece. He also carried, amongst other trinkets, a sword-stick, which he called his `Tickler.' and a great knife, which (for he was a man of a pleasant turn of humour) he called `Ripper,' in allusion to its usefulness as a means of ventilating the stomach of any adversary in a close contest. He had used these weapons with distinguished effect in several instances, all duly chronicled in the newspapers; and was greatly beloved for the gallant manner in which he had `jobbed out' the eye of one gentleman, as he was in the act of knocking at his own street-door.

Mr. Chollop was a man of a roving disposition; and, in any less advanced community, might have been mistaken for a violent vagabond. But his fine qualities being perfectly understood and appreciated in those regions where his lot was cast, and where he had many kindred spirits to consort with, he may be regarded as having been born under a fortunate star, which is not always the case with a man so much before the age in which he lives.

Preferring, with a view to the gratification of his tickling and ripping fancies, to dwell upon the outskirts of society, and in the more remote towns and cities, he was in the habit of emigrating from place to place, and establishing in each some business -- usually a newspaper -- which he presently sold: for the most part closing the bargain by challenging stabbing, pistolling, or gouging the new editor, before he had quite taken possession of the property.

He had come to Eden on a speculation of this kind, but had abandoned it, and was about to leave. He always introduced himself to strangers as a worshipper of Freedom; was the consistent advocate of Lynch law, and slavery; and invariably recommended, both in print and speech, the `tarring and feathering' of any unpopular person who differed from himself. He called this `planting the standard of civilisation in the wilder gardens of My country.'

There is little doubt that Chollop would have planted this standard in Eden at Mark's expense, in return for his plainness of speech (for the genuine Freedom is dumb, save when she vaunts herself), but for the utter desolation and decay prevailing in the settlement, and his own approaching departure from it. As it was, he contented himself with showing Mark one of the revolving-pistols, and asking him what he thought of that weapon.

`It ain't long since I shot a man down with that, sir, in the State of Illin oy,' observed Chollop.

`Did you, indeed!' said Mark, without the smallest agitation. `Very free of you. And very independent!'

`I shot him down, sir,' pursued Chollop, `for asserting in the Spartan Portico, a tri-weekly journal, that the ancient Athenians went a-head of the present Locofoco Ticket.'

`And what's that?' asked Mark.

`Europian not to know,' said Chollop, smoking placidly. `Europian quite!'

After a short devotion to the interests of the magic circle, he resumed the conversation by observing:

`You won't half feel yourself at home in Eden, now?'

`No,' said Mark, `I don't.'