Autobiography of a Pocket-HandkerchiefCooper, James Fenimore
General
Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief
Cooper, James Fenimore
Fables; Handkerchiefs -- Fiction
There was a moment, too, when the colonel thought of presenting me to
Madame de Dolomien, by the way of assuring his favor in the royal
circle, but when he came to count up the money he should lose in the
way of profits, this idea became painful, and it was abandoned. As
often happened with this gentleman, he reasoned so long in all his acts
of liberality, that he supposed a sufficient sacrifice had been made in
the mental discussions, and he never got beyond what surgeons call the
"first intention" of his moral cures. The evening he went to court,
therefore, I was carefully consigned to a carton in the colonel's
trunk, whence I did not again issue until my arrival in America. Of the
voyage, therefore, I have little to say, not having had a sight of the
ocean at all. I cannot affirm that I was absolutely sea-sick, but, on
the other hand, I cannot add that I was perfectly well during any part
of the passage. The pent air of the state-room, and a certain heaviness
about the brain, quite incapacitated me from enjoying any thing that
passed, and that was a happy moment when our trunk was taken on deck to
be examined. The custom-house officers at New York were not men likely
to pick out a pocket-handkerchief from a gentleman's--I beg pardon,
from a colonel's--wardrobe, and I passed unnoticed among sundry other
of my employer's speculations. I call the colonel my EMPLOYER, though
this was not strictly true; for, Heaven be praised! he never did employ
me; but ever since my arrival in America, my gorge has so risen against
the word "master," that I cannot make up my mind to write it. I know
there is an ingenious substitute, as the following little dialogue will
show, but my early education under the astronomer and the delicate
minded Adrienne, has rendered me averse to false taste, and I find the
substitute as disagreeable as the original. The conversation to which I
allude, occurred between me and a very respectable looking shirt, that
I happened to be hanging next to on a line, a few days after my
arrival; the colonel having judged it prudent to get me washed and
properly ironed, before he carried me into the "market."
"Who is your BOSS, pocket-handkerchief?" demanded the shirt, a perfect
stranger to me, by the way, for I had never seen him before the
accidents of the wash-tub brought us in collision; "who is your boss,
pocket-handkerchief, I say?--you are so very fine, I should like to
know something of your history."
From all I had heard and read, I was satisfied my neighbor was a Yankee
shirt, both from his curiosity and from his abrupt manner of asking
questions; still I was at a loss to know the meaning of the word BOSS,
my clairvoyance being totally at fault. It belongs to no language known
to the savans or academicians.
{savans = scholars}
"I am not certain, sir," I answered, "that I understand your meaning.
What is a BOSS?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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