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The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade

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✒ Author
📖 Pages414
⏰ Reading time 16 hours
💡 Originally published1857
🌏 Original language English
📌 Type Novels

Table of contents

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CHAPTER I. A MUTE GOES ABOARD A BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI1
CHAPTER II. SHOWING THAT MANY MEN HAVE MANY MINDS7
CHAPTER III. IN WHICH A VARIETY OF CHARACTERS APPEAR12
CHAPTER IV. RENEWAL OF OLD ACQUAINTANCE.ACQUAINTANCE26
CHAPTER V THE MAN WITH THE WEED MAKES IT AN EVEN QUESTION WHETHER HE BE A GREAT SAGE OR A GREAT SIMPLETON38
CHAPTER VI. AT THE OUTSET OF WHICH CERTAIN PASSENGERS PROVE DEAF TO THE CALL OF CHARITY43
CHAPTER VII. A GENTLEMAN WITH GOLD SLEEVE-BUTTONS55
CHAPTER VIII. A CHARITABLE LADY67
CHAPTER IX. TWO BUSINESS MEN TRANSACT A LITTLE BUSINESS71
CHAPTER X. IN THE CABIN81
CHAPTER XI. ONLY A PAGE OR SO90
CHAPTER XII. STORY OF THE UNFORTUNATE MAN, FROM WHICH MAY BE GATHERED WHETHER OR NO HE HAS BEEN JUSTLY SO ENTITLED93
CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN WITH THE TRAVELING-CAP EVINCES MUCH HUMANITY, AND IN A WAY WHICH WOULD SEEM TO SHOW HIM TO BE ONE OF THE MOST LOGICAL OF OPTIMISTS97
CHAPTER XIV. WORTH THE CONSIDERATION OF THOSE TO WHOM IT MAY PROVE WORTH CONSIDERING105
CHAPTER XV. AN OLD MISER, UPON SUITABLE REPRESENTATIONS, IS PREVAILED UPON TO VENTURE AN INVESTMENT109
CHAPTER XVI. A SICK MAN, AFTER SOME IMPATIENCE, IS INDUCED TO BECOME A PATIENT117
CHAPTER XVII. TOWARDS THE END OF WHICH THE HERB-DOCTOR PROVES HIMSELF A FORGIVER OF INJURIES129
CHAPTER XVIII. INQUEST INTO THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE HERB-DOCTOR138
CHAPTER XIX. A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE145
CHAPTER XX. REAPPEARANCE OF ONE WHO MAY BE REMEMBERED159
CHAPTER XXI. A HARD CASE167
CHAPTER XXII. IN THE POLITE SPIRIT OF THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS181
CHAPTER XXIII. IN WHICH THE POWERFUL EFFECT OF NATURAL SCENERY IS EVINCED IN THE CASE OF THE MISSOURIAN, WHO, IN VIEW OF THE REGION ROUND-ABOUT CAIRO, HAS A RETURN OF HIS CHILLY FIT209
CHAPTER XXIV. A PHILANTHROPIST UNDERTAKES TO CONVERT A MISANTHROPE, BUT DOES NOT GET BEYOND CONFUTING HIM212
CHAPTER XXV. THE COSMOPOLITAN MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE226
CHAPTER XXVI. CONTAINING THE METAPHYSICS OF INDIAN-HATING, ACCORDING TO THE VIEWS OF ONE EVIDENTLY NOT SO PREPOSSESSED AS ROUSSEAU IN FAVOR OF SAVAGES233
CHAPTER XXVII. SOME ACCOUNT OF A MAN OF QUESTIONABLE MORALITY, BUT WHO, NEVERTHELESS, WOULD SEEM ENTITLED TO THE ESTEEM OF THAT EMINENT ENGLISH MORALIST WHO SAID HE LIKED A GOOD HATER245
CHAPTER XXVIII. MOOT POINTS TOUCHING THE LATE COLONEL JOHN MOREDOCK252
CHAPTER XXIX THE BOON COMPANIONS257
CHAPTER XXX. OPENING WITH A POETICAL EULOGY OF THE PRESS AND CONTINUING WITH TALK INSPIRED BY THE SAME269
CHAPTER XXXI. A METAMORPHOSIS MORE SURPRISING THAN ANY IN OVID.SURPRISING THAN ANY IN OVID291
CHAPTER XXXII. SHOWING THAT THE AGE OF MAGIC AND MAGICIANS IS NOT YET OVER292
CHAPTER XXXIII. WHICH MAY PASS FOR WHATEVER IT MAY PROVE TO BE WORTH295
CHAPTER XXXIV. IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN TELLS THE STORY OF THE GENTLEMAN MADMAN297
CHAPTER XXXV. IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN STRIKINGLY EVINCES THE ARTLESSNESS OF HIS NATURE301
CHAPTER XXXVI. IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN IS ACCOSTED BY A MYSTIC, WHEREUPON ENSUES PRETTY MUCH SUCH TALK AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED303
CHAPTER XXXVII THE MYSTICAL MASTER INTRODUCES THE PRACTICAL DISCIPLE320
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DISCIPLE UNBENDS, AND CONSENTS TO ACT A SOCIAL PART323
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE HYPOTHETICAL FRIENDS326
CHAPTER XL. IN WHICH THE STORY OF CHINA ASTER IS AT SECOND-HAND TOLD BY ONE WHO, WHILE NOT DISAPPROVING THE MORAL, DISCLAIMS THE SPIRIT OF THE STYLE336
CHAPTER XLI. ENDING WITH A RUPTURE OF THE HYPOTHESIS358
CHAPTER XLII. UPON THE HEEL OF THE LAST SCENE THE COSMOPOLITAN ENTERS THE BARBER'S SHOP, A BENEDICTION ON HIS LIPS363
CHAPTER XLIII VERY CHARMING374
CHAPTER XLIV. IN WHICH THE LAST THREE WORDS OF THE LAST CHAPTER ARE MADE THE TEXT OF DISCOURSE, WHICH WILL BE SURE OF RECEIVING MORE OR LESS ATTENTION FROM THOSE READERS WHO DO NOT SKIP IT387
CHAPTER XLV. THE COSMOPOLITAN INCREASES IN SERIOUSNESS391

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CHAPTER I. A MUTE GOES ABOARD A BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colors, at the water-side in the city of St. Louis.
His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shrugged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger.
In the same moment with his advent, he stepped aboard the favorite steamer Fidèle, on the point of starting for New Orleans. Stared at, but unsaluted, with the air of one neither courting nor shunning regard, but evenly pursuing the path of duty, lead it through solitudes or cities, he held on his way along the lower deck until he chanced to come to a placard nigh the captain's office, offering a reward for the capture of a mysterious impostor, supposed to have recently arrived from the East; quite an original genius in his vocation, as would appear, though wherein his originality consisted was not clearly given; but what purported to be a careful description of his person followed.
As if it had been a theatre-bill, crowds were gathered about the announcement, and among them certain chevaliers, whose eyes, it was plain, were on the capitals, or, at least, earnestly seeking sight of them from behind intervening coats; but as for their fingers, they were enveloped in some myth; though, during a chance interval, one of these chevaliers somewhat showed his hand in purchasing from another chevalier, ex-officio a peddler of money-belts, one of his popular safe-guards, while another peddler, who was still another versatile chevalier, hawked, in the thick of the throng, the lives of Measan, the bandit of Ohio, Murrel, the pirate of the Mississippi, and the brothers Harpe, the Thugs of the Green River country, in Kentucky—creatures, with others of the sort, one and all exterminated at the time, and for the most part, like the hunted generations of wolves in the same regions, leaving comparatively few successors; which would seem cause for unalloyed gratulation, and is such to all except those who think that in new countries, where the wolves are killed off, the foxes increase.
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