The Daily Crescent

For the Crescent.

Sketches of the Sidewalks and Levees With Glimpses into the New Orleans Bar (rooms.)

PETER FUNK, ESQ.

To illustrate the "life, fortune and sacred honor of the distinguished individual whose name leads off our present sketch of noted characters, is a task as tasteful as it is agreeable. The duty of the faithful chronologist and biographer is particularly a cheerful one when the subject of such notice is calculated to heighten the interest we feel in the dignity and delicate sensibilities of human nature. Funk, like all other illustrious personages who have become so well known as no longer to need the titulary soubriquet of Mister, was born and brought up—no one knows where: at least the information we have on this point is exceedingly uncertain and contradictory. Without, therefore, descending into the particulars of his early training and history, or minutely tracing up the rationale of cause and effect, by showing that a youth of moral proclivity will, in time, run into that species of moral gum-elasticity which goes to constitute the blood and bones of individuals comprising his genus, we shall proceed at once, in medias res, as the boys say at college, and make known to you, gentle reader, that Peter Funk is a young gentleman "about town" who holds the highly responsible office of by-bidder in a Mock Auction—being engaged to said work by "the man wot sells the watches."

You're a gentleman of leisure about Orleans, may be, stranger, and lounging about street. You hear the musical sound of the "human voice divine," crying out "fivenaff, five-n-a-ff—only going at twenty-five dollars and-n-a-ff for this elegant gold watch and chain, in prime running order, just sent in to be sold by a gentleman leaving town, and only five-n-a-ff, and must be sold: five-n-a-ff! Did I hear you say six. sir?" Perhaps you drop in, and if you are not careful how you look at the musical auctioneer he will accept of your look for a wink, and, according to the philosophy of the auction room, a wink passes for a bid, and you find yourself in nominal possession of "an elegant gold watch and chain, in prime running order, just sent in to be sold by a gentleman leaving town," before you are well aware of what you are about. So take care how you look when you are in the patent auction shops. There stands the auctioneer in all the serious earnestness of a man begging for his life, and, with voice and looks and gestures, seems like one speaking sober truth, and "nothin' else." Only half a dozen individuals comprise his audience, and these half a dozen are Peter Funk and his corps de reserve. Peter looks somewhat stouter to-day than he was yesterday, and has exchanged his cloth cloak and cap for a blanket coat and chapeau blanc, and his whiskers have shared the fate of "the last rose of summer"—that is to say, they have evaporated—dropped off: they are non est inventus—gone!

Yes, that's Funk and his five interesting associates in business—"companions of his toil, his feelings and his fame"—Peter the 1st, Peter the 2d. Peter the 3d, Peter the 4th and Peter the 5th—he himself being no other than Peter the Great, or the great Peter—"Peter Funk, Esq."

Now, stranger, take care what you're about— you're the only bona fide customer—if customer you choose to call yourself—that has entered the portals of the auction shop as yet, and Peter Funk Primus and Peter Funk Secundus have done all this bidding that makes the cryer keep up such a hubbaboo. Well. you don't know of this fact, and you think a man's a man for a' that," and you don't understand the secret of Peter Funk and his associates, or the service they're engaged in, and you only see a fine-looking watch, "just sent in to be sold by a gentleman leaving town." and going dog cheap. You nod your head, and straitway the countenance of the cryer brightens up, and his voice grows even more vociferous than before. He's got a bid—a real bid—and the first and only one. He tacks on five dollars more, and now he's heard going it in fine style : "Thirty, thurty, thirty, thirty, thirty—only going at thirty dollars for a splendid elegant gold lever, with seventeen pairs of extra jewels, lately imported, and now must be sold!" He cries on at this rate for perhaps ten minutes. occasionally casting a glance at the passers-by to see if any more greencys can be tolled in. Peter Funk takes the watch in his hand and examines it attentively, and with a very significant look, as though his judgment was perfectly satisfied, he says deliberatively, "Thirty-five!" "Against you, sir," cries Mr. Auctioneer, and forthwith sets off with unusual volubility, crying out one rotundo, "thirty-five, thirty-five—only going at thirty-five!" Thirty-five dollars for such an elegant gold watch is certainly as cheap as dirt—they ask eighty-five or ninety at the stores;—and as these thoughts revolve in your mind, you think you might make five and twenty dollars as well as not, as there are plenty of boys up in your country who would jump at the bargain—and you nod again, the auctioneer having in the meanwhile directed the whole force of his vocable artillery at you, and launched forth in such a rigmarole of praise of said time-piece, that you couldn't well resist his very passionate appeal. "Forty dollars!" is quickly caught up. "Only going at forty dollars!—forty! forty! forty! forty!" and now the cryer turns to Peter, the interesting Peter, whose turn for serious deliberation has again come. He again examines the watch, turns it over and over again, and, as he hands it to the cryer, says, in a very low but decided tone of voice, "forty-five!" By this time one or two other loungers like yourself have dropped in, and monsieur cryer applies himself with exceeding earnestness in lauding the watch, as never, sure, watch was lauded before, except perhaps at a patent auction. While you are revolving in your mind whether "to go" the fifty, some other greeney from one of the upper parishes, or may be from Mississippi, with his pockets full of money, cries out "fifty, by G-d!" and you are relieved from what would have been a very dear bargain to you—the invoice price of said "elegant gold lever" having been only $17 50! Like Hodge's razors, they are "made to sell," and many are the green 'uns that are bit, awfully bit, by the "persuasive speech" of the auctioneer, and still more persuasive biddings of his interesting coadjutor in this pretty business, Peter Funk, Esq., the subject of our present "sketch."

I was pretty well acquainted with Funk before he went into the "Auction and Commission business;" we boarded a while together at the same house. Since his embarkation into the business of buying watches. we have grown offish with one another: he never knows me in the auction room, though we may be standing side by side : and, to tell the truth. I hardly know him half the time in the various disguises he assumes. for he scarcely ever dresses the same for two days in succession— being in cap, cloak and whiskers on one day, and the next aliased up in a white or green blanket.
Some say he was from Old Kentuck, and others again aver he is a North Carolina Tennesseean; while "other some" allege him to have been a direct importation from the nethermost corner of 7 Down East—having resided a year or two in Texas by way of a seasoning—and that he is an "own cousin" of the "rat man," and also of kin to him "wot cleans coat collars." Of this I can say no- s thing—but am of opinion that if even Peter Funk received a "fetching up" according to old-fashioned New England Puritanism, he must have become amazingly warped in his morals ere he reached the latitude of Louisiana. To sum up the character I have to give of Peter Funk, I shall simply say, that he at present thrives well, and will make a business man of himself if he keeps on. He is one of those men who reverse the saying of Hamlet. that "conscience makes cowards of us all." Peter's conscience makes no coward of him—argal, Peter'll be rich one of these days. It's a bad thing to have "The native hue of resolution Thus sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; and Peter takes none of these sickly thoughts, or any other consideration, "for the morrow," except it be what coat, or what colored whiskers he shall put on.