"A wedding or a funeral, A mourning or a festival,--"
that touches the strings of the one human heart of us all and makes it return no uncertain sound. _Shylock_ himself would hardly have demanded his pound of flesh on the wedding-day, had it been _Antonio_ that was to espouse the fair _Portia_. Even he would have allowed three days of grace before demanding the specific performance of his bond. Now Mr. Schulemberg was very far from being a Shylock, and he was also a constant attendant upon the opera, and a devoted admirer of the lovely G----. So he could not wonder that a man on the eve of marriage with that divine creature should forget every other consideration in the immediate contemplation of his happiness,--even if it were the consideration for a cargo of prime linens, and one to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And it is altogether likely that the mundane reflection occurred to him, and made him easier in his mind under the delay, that old G---- was by no means the kind of man to give away a daughter who dropped gold and silver from her sweet lips whenever she opened them in public, as the princess in the fairy-tale did pearls and diamonds, to any man who could not give him a solid equivalent in return. So that, in fact, he regarded the notes of the Signorina G---- as so much collateral security for his debt.
So Mr. Schulemberg was content to bide his reasonable time for the discharge of M. M. ----'s indebtedness to his principal. He had advised Mynheer Van Holland of the speedy sale of his consignment, and given him hopes of a quick return of the proceeds. But as days wore away, it seemed to him that the time he was called on to bide was growing into an unreasonable one. I cannot state with precision exactly how long he waited. Whether he disturbed the sweet influences of the honey-moon by his intrusive presence, or permitted that nectareous satellite to fill her horns and wax and wane in peace before he sought to bring the bridegroom down to the things of earth, are questions which I must leave to the discretion of my readers to settle, each for himself or herself, according to their own notions of the proprieties of the case. But at the proper time, after patience had thrown up in disgust the office of a virtue, he took his hat and cane one fine morning and walked down to No. 118, Pearl Street, for the double purpose of wishing M. M. ---- joy of his marriage and of receiving the price, promised long and long withheld, of the linens which form the tissue of my story.