The Commodious "Life-Preserver" in Melville's The Confidence-Man

A the conclusion of Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man the Cosmopolitan plays upon the credulity of an old man who claims to trust in divine providence in the matter of life's fortune but who, nevertheless, purchases traveler's patent lock and money-belt from vendor. Still unsatisfied, moreover, with his personal welfare aboard steamboat, the old man look[s] wistfully all around, first on the stools and settees, and then on the carpet for for safety.' He searches for something about which his son had told him, but of which he cannot recollect the exact nature because of the novelty of the device. Coming to the old man's assistance, the Cosmopolitan indicates that he knows the object of the old man's search: life-preserver. To this suggestion, the old man responds, So it was. He told me not to omit seeing I had life-preserver in my state-room; said the boat supplied them, too. But where are they? I don't see any. What are they like? The Cosmopolitan answers that the device which the old man seeks looks like this, as he lifts a brown stool with curved tin compartment underneath. As William Braswell long ago noted, the Cosmopolitan proffers chamberpot to the old man,2 who complains about its smell but fails to surmise the nature of the seat and believes it to be new-fashioned life

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