Bachelor Sam

Joaquín Telesforo de Trueba y Cosío

Samuel Snodgrass, Esq. was a confirmed bachelor, and hence the familiar designation bestowed on him by his friends —Bachelor Sam. Sam was a gentleman of property, enjoying excellent character, and possessing many good qualities, which endeared him to his circle of acquaintance; but Sam was afflicted with a failing that constantly marred his enjoyments, and exhibited his mind in a very ludicrous point of view. He firmly believed that the whole female sex had entered into a conspiracy against his liberty —in each woman he beheld a natural enemy. At the sight of a matron armed at all points for matrimonial warfare, he felt a shudder of alarm, and at the approach of a beautiful girl he actually betook himself to flight. Nay, the poor man was so fearfully influenced by this hobby, that scarcely a day of his life passed in undisturbed tranquillity. He thought and dreamt of nothing but worldly-minded mammas and scheming chaperons —young, cold, selfish girls, and experienced flirts —all premeditating some deep-prepared attack against his person.

Indeed, it must be confessed, that his alarm was not entirely without foundation. He knew that in his earlier days (Sam was now somewhat past forty) a matrimonial attempt had been made by two veterans in the field to capture him, and throw the chains of wedlock round his neck, but he had been fortunate enough to escape the aggression by the timely warning of a friend who let him into the views and character of his assailants. Then, again, the mishaps of some of his acquaintance produced a strong impression on his mind. His very shirt-collar shook with horror when he reflected on the fatal captivity of Tom Rambleton. He remembered the time when poor Tom was one of the most pleasant fellows about town. Young and gay, without care or trouble of any kind, save the very agreeable task of spending three thousand a-year —and now, alas! what a change! In an evil hour Tom happened to fall in the way of one of these dangerous conjugal harpies. In an evil hour did he put any trust in the fond glances and sweet smiles of the «gentle Sophia». No sooner was the noose tied and the victim secured, than the «gentle Sophia» threw off her disguise, and appeared in her natural colours —a very dragon, a vixen— in fact, one of the most terrific of petticoat despots. But Tom's case was not the only awful example and solemn «memento» offered by fate to warn bachelor Sam against incurring such danger.

There was Mr. Watkins, one of the most respectable men on 'change. Well; neglecting the sober and industrious pursuits to which he had dedicated his honest life for the space of forty years, in an evil hour, too, was persuaded by the genii of vanity to bestow his fortune and his hand on an aristocratic beggar, who thought that the accident of being an earl's sister, and the privilege of being an Hon. Jane, was more than sufficient compensation for the citizen's hundred thousand pounds. Mr. Watkins, from the very day of his wedding, was treated of course with the most sovereign contempt by his better half, and her noble circle of relatives and friends. Then, again, who could forget the melancholy affair of poor Melrush, who was trepanned into marrying a «modest, timid girl», who ran away with a guardsman six months after the ceremony? Indeed, the examples that crowded on Sam's mind were as numerous as they were perplexing; but these will suffice to offer some little apology for his tremendous fears and alarm.

Bachelor Sam had gradually cut all sorts of parties except dinners. Balls he abhorred —the ball-room was, according to his opinion, the most dangerous field of battle for the matrimonial belligerents. It was there, indeed, that the more formidable attacks were made against inoffensive states —that castles, and halls, and country villas, were conquered and taken by storm; to say nothing of the enormous booty gathered from the sacking and pillage of bank-notes, exchequer bills, bonds, stock, canal shares, and every other share under the sun. Sam knew full well that his friend Sir Edward Jasper had speedily surrendered his splendid manor of Hamfield, unable to sustain any longer the fire unremittingly shot from Araminta Newberry's conquering eye. He knew also that Caringly Castle, although strongly garrisoned by two elder maiden aunts, and a bevy of portionless younger brothers, had, nevertheless, been taken by storm after a month's desperate flirtation, under the experienced generalship of Augusta Hunterman, and the garrison obliged to evacuate the place. He knew also that the mere skirmish of a quadrille and a waltz had sufficed in many instances to subdue a baronetcy, and that a galopade had run away with many a fortune imprudently entrusted to the care of foolish boys let loose from college.

Bachelor Sam detested public breakfasts, pic-nics, water parties, concerts, &c. &c. quite as much as balls, and for the very same reason. They were, in fact, the various stratagems and plans of attack employed in that most nefarious war —vulgarly called husband hunting. The opera did not fill our friend with so much alarm, because he considered himself safely guarded, having secured one of those strong positions called stalls, so very favourable to the preservation of bachelors. It is evident that the most determined eye-shots fired from the boxes could produce no effect at such a distance. With regard to dinner parties, Sam was exceedingly embarrassed how to act; 'tis true, that the danger incurred by so close an attack as a hostile neighbour at the dinner-table was a thing to be well considered, hut then our friend thought it extremely hard to relinquish some of the very best works in gastronomic lore, because the temples of that admirable science happened to be profaned by the presence of unwelcome intruders. Bachelor Sam possessed, indeed, a profound respect and veneration for the culinary art —rather call it science— nay, the first of sciences.

The only thing which he could do was to take a middle term, and attend those solemn dinners, at which all the twaddlers and bores are invited. Sam was content to endure long discussions on the Corn Laws, the East India Company, and Reform, coupled, as the infliction was, with most delicious filets and salmis of astonishing variety of condiment.

«Sam, are you going to Lady Dockerell's ball to-night?» inquired Augustus Dangle, a young man about town.

«Certainly not —humph. What have I got to do with balls? I know better —it won't do with me. Mammas and daughters lose their time». And he shook his wise head with the utmost self-congratulation.

Bachelor Sam's mania increased every day, till the poor man could not endure the sight of a woman. He literally issued forth a bull of excommunication against the whole sex. On one occasion he hastily quitted a house where he was paying a visit, simply because Mrs. and the Miss Robertsons were announced. Now this Mrs. Robertson was a most determined manœuvrer and establishment-hunting mamma. Her case was exceedingly pitiful. Only fancy five portionless daughters, neither encumbered with beauty nor accomplishments! It required, indeed, more than ordinary skill and perseverance to dispose of, to any advantage, such very unmarketable commodities. Then the five Miss Robertsons had become the terror of bachelors of our friend's disposition —their attempts were most determined— their attacks desperate —they fastened on a man with the invincible adherence and pertinacity of a remora. It was a matter of immense difficulty to get rid of them whenever they happened to be asked to dance; they were completely masters of the thousand little arts which husband-hunters employ to keep the men by their side; and nothing short of positive rudeness was sufficient to disencumber their luckless partner from so serious a weight.

Sam was perfectly right in his strictures concerning the Robertsons, but he was led to view every woman in the same unfavourable light; he contrived to misinterpret every word and every action of poor females. If a young girl smiled in the innocence of her heart, he forthwith set her down as an incipient flirt, already trying to draw the attention of the men. If, on the contrary, he perceived a young lady with a serious aspect and demure deportment, he immediately concluded that she was an arrant hypocrite. In fact, in his presence, women could neither smile nor frown —laugh, talk, walk, or dance, sit still, or keep silent, without incurring some ungracious appellation. He saw plots in all their words and all their movements. The few, very few times that he had been forced to dance, it was amusing to see the singular pains which he took to defend himself against what he considered an attack. He favoured his partner with most discouraging monosyllables, and no sooner was the quadrille ended, than he hastened with undisguised alacrity to rid himself of his female companion.

Poor Sam! the sight of a pretty girl actually threw a cloud over his countenance. He was certainly more at ease in the company of those frightful creatures, whom nature, by some extraordinary caprice, has added to the feminine gender. Some thought that Mr. Snodgrass had a peculiar taste in beauty, for he was invariably seen courting, in preference, the company of the most repelling ugly girls of the party. But even this portion of the sex he thought it highly expedient to cut, when, upon his having talked four times consecutively to Miss Catherine Crisp, two matrons began to whisper in his ear, that Miss Crisp was a most amiable girl —«Sweet angel», «Kitty will make an excellent wife». «Such a kind heart —such placidity of temper— and then so excellently brought up», &c. &c. This was enough for Sam —from the unlucky moment that the officious dowager began to acquaint him with the merits of Miss Catherine Crisp, Sam made it a particular study not to come within perilous distance of the said young lady. Not because she had red hair —a yellow complexion— a pug nose —an exuberance on her back, and an absence in front— not because she had been pronounced one of the plainest women on earth; but simply because of her being amiable, possessing a good heart, good temper, and being likely to make an excellent wife. Such a capability was enough to counteract all the cardinal virtues in the estimation of Sam, and he accordingly shunned, with all possible care, this very ugly and accomplished creature.

Sam's next resource was old women, and he was generally observed doing the amiable by some antiquated dame, whom the rest of the men studiously avoided. By this means Sam soon enjoyed an undisturbed monopoly of all the prosy, drowsy, foolish, palsied dowagers in London. They pronounced him a «very sensible man»; but even among such very venerable company, the peace of mind of our friend was doomed to be disturbed. Sam, to his utter horror and consternation, found out that some of these apparently inoffensive old ladies were most deep and dangerous foes, who were fighting under false colours in the cause of a portionless niece, or young protegée. From the moment of this awful discovery, Sam resolved also to cut old women, and thus we see, that by his successive cuttings he had now sent the whole feminine gender to Coventry.

Being debarred from his intercourse with one half of the human species, Bachelor Sam found it exceedingly difficult to get comfortably through the four-and-twenty hours of the day. His anxiety now was how to kill time. He became, as a matter of course, a most desperate club-man. He enrolled himself a member of about half a dozen of those selfish establishments, and his whole day was spent in lounging, dangling, and lolling from one club to another. But a club is not unfortunately the only requisite for human happiness, and Sam was soon a prey to the most fatal of all mortal maladies, ennui. Every thing tired him, and, unless, when an unsatisfactory dinner gave him an opportunity to grumble and scold the waiter, the poor man was at a sad loss to know how to rouse his spirits from that state of morbid apathy into which they were gradually sinking.

Years crept on, and Bachelor Sam was certainly neither improved in temper nor in his way of living; the former had become morose and discontented, the latter was well calculated to bring an additional stock of ennui, with the unpleasant addition of years. Sam dropt into one club, then another —took up a paper, which paper he threw by in disgust, and then sallied out for ways and means of killing the tedious time. At length he voted clubs great nuisances, and resolved to combine the advantages of the married man with the independence of the single. He procured a comfortable establishment, and devoted the energies of his mind and soul to that sublime science which, as we have observed already, found so much merit in his eyes, or rather in his mouth. He considered cooking as the most splendid work of human genius and industry. Strange to say, that in proportion as Sam disliked women, the more he became attached to good eating and drinking. His fondest affections were concentrated into that one darling object, and, sooth to say, never was young girl so devotedly loved by an enthusiastic admirer, as an excellent dinner was adored by Sam.

Fate, or destiny, or fortune, or the stars, had decreed that Mrs. Muggins should continue an inmate of the bachelor's residence a much longer period of time than it was usual for any female to remain. But Mrs. Muggins was a woman of no ordinary merit: 'tis true she chanced to be on the wrong side of forty, and possessed the visage of a gorgon —'tis true, also, that she was exceedingly expert in scolding, and that she had a most invincible will of her own. But then she had qualities which more than counterbalanced these faults —if faults they could be called— considering the prejudice of Bachelor Sam against youth and beauty. Mrs. Muggins could talk copiously and eloquently on the deceits and utter worthlessness of the female sex: she never missed an opportunity of applauding her master for having escaped the arts of scheming women. Sam hemmed, and coughed, and avowed that Mrs. Muggins was a «very sensible woman»; and moreover, although she had been ostensibly engaged as housekeeper, she possessed such peculiar and decided abilities for cookery, that she took special care to superintend this important branch in her master's domestic happiness. Her grateful master swore that he had found a treasure in Mrs. Muggins; and thus he continued for a long time —to grumble, and doze, and eat; and then to eat, and doze, and grumble.

But fate had dreadful calamities in store for poor Sam. An awful danger threatened extermination to his domestic comforts. The reader must know that among the dainty dishes which the profound Mrs. Muggins was constantly inventing to tickle her master's palate, there was one that had won immense approbation —it was a peculiar sort of pudding, which the amiable Mrs. Muggins had christened «Bachelor's Pudding», in compliment to her master. The mastication of this most palatable pudding may justly be accounted the greatest blessing that Bachelor Sam experienced in this vale of tears. It was, indeed, a pudding, the invention of which might confer additional lustre on the names, already sufficiently illustrious, of Ude, Beauvilliers, Furet, and other great men. This pudding, in fine, was sufficient of itself to endear the accomplished Mrs. Muggins to her master, even if she could prefer no other claim to his regard and esteem, which was far from being the case —the dame presenting additional claims to those feelings by her phillippics against the fair sex, and her warm encomiums on «single blessedness», which, notwithstanding the Mrs. affixed to her name, she had now professed for the last five and forty years.

One morning Mrs. Muggins announced to Bachelor Sam that she must quit his service. Sam was thunderstruck —dismayed— nay, almost annihilated at such fearful intelligence.

«Quit my service, Mrs. Muggins! surely I've given you no cause for complaint?»

«No, sir —but a powerful reason».

«Powerful reason! Now pray, good Mrs. Muggins, don't be precipitate.—I'll do any thing to render things comfortable to you».

«But you can't, sir».

«No! only mention your wishes —any thing to keep you in my house».

«But —but, sir —indeed— really —hem— the fact is, I'm going to get married».

«Get married! Bless me! I'm ready to fall! Get married!»

Bachelor Sam could scarcely believe his senses. Mrs. Muggins, however, reiterated her assertion, and there could be no doubt that she really intended to commit the rash act. Here was a fearful prospect; Sam's heart throbbed with agony —«Bachelor's pudding» was lost for ever— he could not recover the loss of Mrs. Muggins —she was indispensable to his existence.

«And whom are you going to marry? Do you love the man?»

«Why, as to loving —I've seen another whom I should prefer».

«But would you really abandon me, good Mrs. Muggins?»

A very interesting dialogue now took place, and sundry equally interesting explanations came to light. Bachelor Sam foresaw that in his dreadful predicament nothing but a bold step could save him. It struck his active mind, that there was one very efficient means of securing the valuable Mrs. Muggins all to himself. He offered his hand to the interesting virgin; and the virgin, after a world of blushing and modesty, accepted the said hand. Sam, after escaping innumerable dangers, married, at the age of fifty-eight, his housekeeper, and thereby secured a delectable dish of «Bachelor's pudding» for the rest of his days!