The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York CityMcCabe, James Dabney
History
The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City
McCabe, James Dabney
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- History
Mr. Swigg purchased an elegant mansion on Fifth Avenue, which some
broken down patrician offered for sale, and the family commenced their
fashionable career in a blaze of glory. They had one of the finest
establishments in the city; they gave splendid entertainments, and the
young bloods soon found that they could enjoy themselves at the Swigg
levees very much as they pleased, as their host and hostess were too
glad to see them, to criticize their conduct very closely. The worthy
couple counted many celebrities amongst their guests. There were
generals, both major and brigadier, colonels and captains in abundance,
and occasionally some dark-skinned, bewhiskered foreigner, who rejoiced
in the title of count, marquis, or lord, and who looked more like he
had passed his days in the galleys, than in the courts of the old
world. The warmest welcome of the host and hostess, especially the
latter, was reserved for these gentlemen. Between the man in the blue
and gold of his country's livery, who had daily perilled his life for
the perpetuity of the institutions that had made the fortunes of the
Swiggs, and the titled, suspicious-looking foreigner, of whom they knew
nothing with certainty, the good people never hesitated. The preference
was given to the latter.
One of these gentlemen was especially welcome. This was the Baron Von
Storck, who claimed to be an Austrian nobleman of great wealth. In
support of his assertion, when he appeared at fashionable
entertainments, he covered the front of his coat with ribbons of every
hue in the rainbow. He made his appearance in New York society almost
simultaneously with the Swiggs, and from the first, devoted himself
particularly to them or to Miss Arabella, the heiress of the three
millions.
As might have been expected, in the course of a few months the Baron
proposed for the hand of Miss Arabella, to the great delight of papa
and mamma, and the 'young people' were formally engaged. After this the
young lady and her mother constantly amused themselves with writing the
future title of the former, 'just to see how it looked.' Such a piece
of good fortune could not be kept secret; and Miss Arabella was the
object of the envy of scores of damsels who had been trying in vain to
ensnare the elegant foreigner in their own nets, which were not so
heavily baited.
One morning the Baron waited upon Mrs. Swigg, and producing an enormous
document, written in German, and furnished with a huge red seal stamped
with an eagle, informed her that the paper was a peremptory order from
his Government, which he had just received, commanding him to return
home at once, as his services were needed. He added that he could not
disobey the command of his sovereign, and asked that his marriage with
Arabella might take place at once, so that they might sail for the old
world in the next Bremen steamer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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