And has he forgotten all the other items of his memoranda? Clifford's
affair arranged, he was to meet a State Street broker, who has
undertaken to procure a heavy percentage, and the best of paper, for a
few loose thousands which the Judge happens to have by him, uninvested.
The wrinkled note-shaver will have taken his railroad trip in vain.
Half an hour later, in the street next to this, there was to be an
auction of real estate, including a portion of the old Pyncheon
property, originally belonging to Maule's garden ground. It has been
alienated from the Pyncheons these four-score years; but the Judge had
kept it in his eye, and had set his heart on reannexing it to the small
demesne still left around the Seven Gables; and now, during this odd
fit of oblivion, the fatal hammer must have fallen, and transferred our
ancient patrimony to some alien possessor. Possibly, indeed, the sale
may have been postponed till fairer weather. If so, will the Judge
make it convenient to be present, and favor the auctioneer with his
bid, On the proximate occasion?
The next affair was to buy a horse for his own driving. The one
heretofore his favorite stumbled, this very morning, on the road to
town, and must be at once discarded. Judge Pyncheon's neck is too
precious to be risked on such a contingency as a stumbling steed.
Should all the above business be seasonably got through with, he might
attend the meeting of a charitable society; the very name of which,
however, in the multiplicity of his benevolence, is quite forgotten; so
that this engagement may pass unfulfilled, and no great harm done. And
if he have time, amid the press of more urgent matters, he must take
measures for the renewal of Mrs. Pyncheon's tombstone, which, the
sexton tells him, has fallen on its marble face, and is cracked quite
in twain. She was a praiseworthy woman enough, thinks the Judge, in
spite of her nervousness, and the tears that she was so oozy with, and
her foolish behavior about the coffee; and as she took her departure so
seasonably, he will not grudge the second tombstone. It is better, at
least, than if she had never needed any! The next item on his list was
to give orders for some fruit-trees, of a rare variety, to be
deliverable at his country-seat in the ensuing autumn. Yes, buy them,
by all means; and may the peaches be luscious in your mouth, Judge
Pyncheon! After this comes something more important. A committee of
his political party has besought him for a hundred or two of dollars,
in addition to his previous disbursements, towards carrying on the fall
campaign. The Judge is a patriot; the fate of the country is staked on
the November election; and besides, as will be shadowed forth in
another paragraph, he has no trifling stake of his own in the same
great game. He will do what the committee asks; nay, he will be
liberal beyond their expectations; they shall have a check for five
hundred dollars, and more anon, if it be needed. What next? A decayed
widow, whose husband was Judge Pyncheon's early friend, has laid her
case of destitution before him, in a very moving letter. She and her
fair daughter have scarcely bread to eat. He partly intends to call on
her to-day,--perhaps so--perhaps not,--accordingly as he may happen to
have leisure, and a small bank-note.