The Potiphar Papers by George William Curtis (page 2)

daughter-in-law of Lord Londonderry will live after him in the house where his father and mother lived before him? Did that ever occur to you, my dear?”

“Mr. Potiphar,” she replied, “do you mean to go by the example of foreign noblemen? I thought you always laughed at me for what you call ‘aping.'”

“So I do, and so I will continue to do, Mrs. Potiphar; only I thought that, perhaps, you would like to know the fact, because it might make you more lenient to me when I regretted leaving our old house here. It has an aristocratic precedent.”

Poor, dear little Mrs. P.! It didn’t take as I meant it should, and I said no more. Yet it does seem to me a pity that we lose all the interest and advantage of a homestead. The house and its furniture become endeared by long residence, and by their mute share in all the chances of our life. The chair in which some dear old friend so often sat–father and mother, perhaps–and in which they shall sit no more; the old-fashioned table with the cuts and scratches that generations of children have made upon it; the old book-cases; the heavy side-board; the glass, from which such bumpers sparkled for those who are hopelessly scattered now, or for ever gone; the doors they opened; the walls that echoed their long-hushed laughter,–are we wise when we part with them all, or, when compelled to do so, to leave them eagerly?

I remember my brother James used to say: “What is our envy for our country friends, but that their homes are permanent and characteristic? Their children’s children may play in the same garden. Each annual festival may summon them to the old hearth. In the meeting-house they sit in the wooden pews where long ago they sat and dreamed of Jerusalem, and now as they sit there, that long ago is fairer than the holy city. Through the open window they see the grass waving softly in the summer air, over old graves dearer to them than many new houses. By a thousand tangible and visible associations they are still, with a peculiar sense of actuality, near to all they love.”

Polly would call it a sentimental whim–if she could take Mrs. Croesus’s advice before she spoke of it–but what then? When I was fifteen, I fell desperately in love with Lucy Lamb. “Pooh, pooh,” said my father, “you are romantic, it’s til a whim of yours.”

And he succeeded in breaking it up. I went to China, and Lucy married old Firkin, and lived in a splendid house, and now lies in a splendid tomb of Carrara marble, exquisitely sculptured.

When I was forty, I came home from China, and the old gentleman said, “I want you to marry Arabella Bobbs, the heiress. It will be a good match.”

I said to him,

“Pooh, pooh, my dear father, you are mercenary; it’s all a whim of yours.”

“My dear son, I know it,” said he, “the whole thing a whim. You can live on a hundred dollars a year, if you choose. But you have the whim of a good dinner, of a statue, of a book. Why not? Only be careful in following your whims, that they really come to something. Have as many whims as you please, but don’t follow them all.”

“Certainly not,” said I; and fell in love with the present Mrs. Potiphar, and married her off-hand. So, if she calls this genuine influence of association a mere whim–let it go at that. She is a whim, too. My mistake simply was in not following out the romantic whim, and marrying Lucy Lamb. At least it seems to me so, this morning. In fact sitting in my very new “palatial residence,” the whole business of life seems to me rather whimsical.

For here I am, come into port at last. No longer young,–but worth a good fortune,–master of a great house,–respected down town,–husband of Mrs. Potiphar,–and father of Master Frederic ditto. Per contra; I shall never be in love again,–in getting my fortune I have lost my real life,–my house is dreary,–Mrs. Potiphar is not Lucy Lamb,–and Master Frederic–is a good boy.

The game is all up for me, and yet I trust I have good feeling enough left to sympathize with those who are still playing. I see girls as lovely and dear as any of which poets have sung–as fresh as dew-drops, and beautiful as morning. I watch their glances, and understand them better than they know.–for they do not dream that “old Potiphar” does any thing more than pay Mrs. P.’s bills. I see the youths nervous about neckcloths, and anxious that their hair shall be parted straight behind. I see them all wear the same tie, the same trowsers, the same boots. I hear them all say the same thing, and dance with the same partners in the same way. I see them go to Europe and return–I hear them talk slang to show that they have exhausted human life in foreign parts and observe them demean themselves according to their idea of the English nobleman. I watch them go in strongly for being “manly,” and “smashing the spoonies”–asserting intimacies with certain uncertain women in Paris, and proving it by their treatment of ladies at home. I see them fuddle themselves on fine wines and talk like cooks, play heavily and lose, and win, and pay, and drink, and maintain a conservative position in politics, denouncing “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” as a false and fanatical tract; and declaring that our peculiar institutions are our own affair, and that John Bull had better keep his eyes at home to look into his coal mines. I see this vigorous fermentation subside, and much clear character deposited–and, also, much life and talent muddled forever.

It is whimsical, because this absurd spectacle is presented by manikins who are made of the same clay as Plutarch’s heroes-because, deliberately, they prefer cabbages to roses. I am not at all angry with them. On the contrary, when they dance well I look on with pleasure. Man ought to dance, but he ought to do something else, too. All genial gentlemen in all ages have danced. Who quarrels with dancing? Ask Mrs. Potiphar if I ever objected to it. But then, people must dance at their own risk. If Lucy Lamb, by dancing with young Boosey when he is tipsy, shows that she has no self-respect, how can I, coolly talking with Mrs. Lamb in the corner, and gravely looking on, respect the young lady? Lucy tells me that if she dances with James she must with John. I cannot deny it, for I am not sufficiently familiar with the regulations of the mystery. Only this; if dancing with sober James makes it necessary to dance with tipsy John–it seems to me, upon a hasty glance at the subject, that a self-respecting Lucy would refrain from the dance with James. Why it should be so, I cannot understand. Why Lucy must dance with every man who asks her, whether he is in his senses, or knows how to dance, or is agreeable to her or not, is a profound mystery to Paul Potiphar. Here is a case of woman’s wrongs, decidedly. We men cull the choicest partners, make the severest selections, and the innocent Lucys gracefully submit. Lucy loves James, and a waltz with him (as P. P. knows very well from experience) is “a little heaven below” to both. Now, dearest Lucy, why must you pay the awful penance of immediately waltzing with John, against whom your womanly instinct rebels? And yet the laws of social life are so stern, that Lucy must make the terrible decision, whether it is better to waltz with James or worse to waltz with John! “Whether,” to put it strongly with Father Jerome, “heaven is pleasanter than hell is painful.”

I say that I watch these graceful gamesters, without bitter feeling. Sometimes it is sad to see James woo Lucy, win her, marry her, and then both discover that they have made a mistake. I don’t see how they could have helped it; and when the world, that loves them both so tenderly, holds up its pure hands of horror, why, Paul Potiphar, goes quietly home to Mrs. P., who is dressing for Lucy’s ball, and says nothing. He prefers to retire into his private room, and his slippers, and read the last number of _Bleak House_, or a chapter in _Vanity Fair_. If Mrs. Potiphar catches him at the latter, she is sure to say:

“There it is again; always reading those exaggerated sketches of society. Odious man that he is. I am sure he never knew a truly womanly woman.”

“Polly, when he comes back in September I’ll introduce him to you,” is the only answer I have time to make, for it is already half past ten, and Mrs. P. must be off to the ball.

I know that our set is not the world, nor the country, nor the city. I know that the amiable youths who are in league to crush spooneyism are not many, and well I know, that in our set (I mean Mrs. P.’s) there are hearts as noble and characters as lofty as in any time and in any land. And yet, as the father of a family (viz. Frederic, our son), I am constrained to believe that our social tendency is to the wildest extravagance. Here, for instance, is my house. It cost me eighty-five thousand dollars. It is superbly furnished. Mrs. P. and I don’t know much about such things. She was only stringent for buhl, and the last Parisian models, so we delivered our house into the hands of certain eminent upholsterers to be furnished, as we send Frederic to the tailor’s to be clothed. To be sure, I asked what proof we had that the upholsterer was possessed of taste. But Mrs. P. silenced me, by saying that it was his business to have taste, and that a man who sold furniture, naturally knew what was handsome and proper for my house.

The furnishing was certainly performed with great splendor and expense. My drawing-rooms strongly resemble the warehouse of an ideal cabinetmaker. Every whim of table–every caprice of chair and sofa, is satisfied in those rooms. There are curtains like rainbows, and carpets, as if the curtains had dripped all over the floor. There are heavy cabinets of carved walnut, such as belong in the heavy wainscotted rooms of old palaces, set against my last French pattern of wall paper. There are lofty chairs like the thrones of archbishops in Gothic cathedrals, standing by the side of the elaborately gilded frames of mirrors. Marble statues of Venus and the Apollo support my mantels, upon which _or molu_ Louis Quatorze clocks ring the hours. In all possible places there are statues, statuettes, vases, plates, teacups, and liquor-cases. The woodwork, when white, is elaborated in Moresco carving–when oak and walnut, it is heavily moulded. The contrasts are pretty, but rather sudden. In truth, my house is a huge curiosity shop of valuable articles,–clustered without taste, or feeling, or reason. They are there, because my house was large and I was able to buy them; and because, as Mrs. P. says, one must have buhl and _or molu_, and new forms of furniture, and do as well as one’s neighbors, and show that one is rich, if he is so. They are there, in fact, because I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want them, but then I don’t know what I did want. Somehow I don’t feel as if I had a home, merely because orders were given to the best upholsterers and fancy-men in town to send a sample of all their wares to my house. To pay a morning call at Mrs. Potiphar’s is, in some ways, better than going shopping. You see more new and costly things in a shorter time. People say, “What a love of a chair!” “What a darling table!” “What a heavenly sofa!” and they all go and tease their husbands to get things precisely like them. When Kurz Pacha the Sennaar Minister, came to a dinner at my house, he said:

“Bless my soul! Mr. Potiphar, your house is just like your neighbor’s.”

I know it. I am perfectly aware that there is no more difference between my house and Croesus’s, than there is in two ten dollar bills of the same bank. He might live in my house and I in his, without any confusion. He has the same curtains, carpets, chairs, tables, Venuses, Apollos, busts, vases, etc. And he goes into his room, and thinks it’s all a devilish bore, just as I do. We have each got to refurnish every few years, and therefore have no possible opportunity for attaching ourselves to the objects about us. Unfortunately Kurz Pacha particularly detested precisely what Mrs. P. most liked, because it is the fashion to like them. I mean the Louis Quatorze and the Louis Quinze things.

“Taste, dear Mrs. Potiphar,” said the Pacha, “was a thing not known in the days of those kings. Grace was entirely supplanted by grotesqueness, and now, instead of pure and beautiful Greek forms, we must collect these hideous things. If you are going backward to find models, why not go as far as the good ones? My dear madame, an _or molu_ Louis Quatorze clock would have given Pericles a fit. Your drawing-rooms would have thrown Aspasia into hysterics. Things are not beautiful because they cost money; nor is any grouping handsome without harmony. Your house is like a woman dressed in Ninon de l’Enclos’s bodice, with Queen Anne’s hooped skirt, who limps in Chinese shoes, and wears an Elizabethan ruff round her neck, and a Druse’s horn on her head. My dear madam, this is the kind of thing we go to see in museums. It is the old stock joke of the world.”

By Jove! how mad Mrs. Potiphar was! She rose from table, to the great dismay of Kurz Pacha, and I could only restrain her by reminding her that the Sennaar Minister had but an imperfect idea of our language, and that in Sennaar people probably said what they thought when they conversed.

“You’d better go to Sennaar, then, yourself, Mr. Potiphar,” said my wife, as she smoothed her rumpled feathers.

“‘Pon my word, madam, it’s my own opinion,” replied I.

Kurz Pacha, who is a philosopher (of the Sennaar school), asks me if people have no ideas of their own in building houses. I answer, none, that I know of, except that of getting the house built. The fact is, it is as much as Paul Potiphar can do, to make the money to erect his palatial residence, and then to keep it going. There are a great many fine statues in my house, but I know nothing about them: I don’t see why we should have such heathen images in reputable houses. But Mrs. P. says:

“Pooh! have you no love for the fine arts?”

There it is. It doesn’t do not to love the fine arts; so Polly is continually cluttering up the halls and staircases with marble, and sending me heavy bills for the same.

When the house was ready, and my wife had purchased the furniture, she came and said to me:

“Now, my dear P., there is one thing we haven’t thought of.”

“What’s that?”

“Pictures, you know, dear.”

“What do you want pictures for?” growled I, rather surlily, I am afraid.

“Why, to furnish the walls; what do you suppose we want pictures for?”

“I tell you, Polly,” said I, “that pictures are the most extravagant kind of furniture. Pshaw! a man rubs and dabbles a little upon a canvas two feet square, and then coolly asks three hundred dollars for it.”

“Dear me, Pot,” she answered, “I don’t want home-made pictures. What an idea! Do you think I’d have pictures on my walls that were painted in this country?–No, my dear husband, let us have some choice specimens of the old masters. A landscape by Rayfel, for instance; or one of Angel’s fruit pieces, or a cattle scene by Verynees, or a Madonna of Giddo’s, or a boar hunt of Hannibal Crackkey’s.”

What was the use of fighting against this sort of thing? I told her to have it her own way. Mrs. P. consulted Singe the pastry cook, who told her his cousin had just come out from Italy with a lot of the very finest pictures in the world, which he had bribed one of the Pope’s guard to steal from the Vatican, and which he would sell at a bargain.

They hang on my walls now. They represent nothing in particular; but in certain lights, if you look very closely, you can easily recognize something in them that looks like a lump of something brown. There is one very ugly woman with a convulsive child in her arms, to which Mrs. P. directly takes all her visitors, and asks them to admire the beautiful Shay douver of Giddo’s. When I go out to dinner with people that talk pictures and books, and that kind of thing, I don’t like to seem behind, so I say, in a critical way, that Giddo was a good painter. None of them contradict me, and one day when somebody asked, “Which of his pictures do you prefer?” I answered straight, “His Shay douver,” and no more questions were asked.

They hang all about the house now. The Giddo is in the dining room. I asked the Sennaar Minister if it wasn’t odd to have a religious picture in the dining-room. He smiled, and said that it was perfectly proper if I liked it, and if the picture of such an ugly woman didn’t take away my appetite.

“What difference does it make,” said he, in the Sennaar manner, “it would be equally out of keeping with every other room in your house. My dear Potiphar, it is a perfectly unprincipled house, this of yours. If your mind were in the condition of your house, so ill-assorted, so confused, so overloaded with things that don’t belong together, you would never make another cent. You have order, propriety, harmony, in your dealings with the Symmes’s Hole Bore Co., and they are the secrets of your success. Why not have the same elements in your house? Why pitch every century, country, and fashion, higgledy-piggledly into your parlors and dining-room? Have everything you can get, in heaven’s name, but have everything in its place. If you are a plodding tradesman, knowing and caring nothing about pictures, or books, or statuary, or _objets de vertu_; don’t have them. Suppose your neighbor chooses to put them in his house. If he has them merely because he had the money to pay for them, he is the butt of every picture and book he owns.”

When I meet Mr. Croesus in Wall street, I respect him as I do a king in his palace, or a scholar in his study. He is master of the occasion. He commands like Nelson at the Nile. I, who am merely a diplomatist, skulk and hurry along, and if Mr. Croesus smiles, I inwardly thank him for his charity. Wall street is Croesus’s sphere, and all his powers play there perfectly. But when I meet him in his house, surrounded by objects of art, by the triumphs of a skill which he does not understand, and for which he cares nothing,–of which, in fact, he seems afraid, because he knows any chance question about them would trip him up,–my feeling is very much changed. If I should ask him what _or molu_ is, I don’t believe he could answer, though his splendid _or molu_ clock rang, indignant, from the mantel. But if I should say, ‘Invest me this thousand dollars,’ he would secure me eight per cent. It certainly isn’t necessary to know what _or molu_ is, nor to have any other _objet de vertu_ but your wife. Then why should you barricade yourself behind all these things that you really cannot enjoy, because you don’t understand? If you could not read Italian, you would be a fool to buy Dante, merely because you knew he was a great poet. And, in the same way, if you know nothing about matters of art, it is equally foolish for you to buy statues and pictures, although you hear on all sides that, as Mrs. P. says, one must love art.

“As for learning from your own pictures, you know perfectly well, that until you have some taste in the matter, you will be paying money for your pictures blindly, so that the only persons upon whom your display of art would make any impression, will be the very ones to see that you know nothing about it.

“In Sennaar, a man is literally ‘the master of the house.’ He isn’t surrounded by what he does not understand; he is not obliged to talk book, and picture, when he knows nothing about these matters. He is not afraid of his parlor, and you feel instantly upon entering the house, the character of the master. Please, my dear Mr. Potiphar, survey your mansion, and tell me what kind of a man it indicates. If it does not proclaim (in your case) the President of the Patagonia Junction, a man shrewd, and hard, and solid, without taste or liberal cultivation, it is a painted deceiver. If it tries to insinuate by this chaotic profusion of rich and rare objects, that you are a cultivated, accomplished, tasteful, and generous man, it is a bad lie, because a transparent one. Why, my dear old Pot., the moment your servant opens the front door, a man of sense perceives the whole thing. You and Mrs. Potiphar are bullied by all the brilliancy you have conjured up. It is the old story of the fisherman and the genii. And your guests all see it. They are too well-bred to speak of it; but I come from Sennaar, where we do not lay so much stress upon that kind of good-breeding.

“Mr. Paul Potiphar, it is one thing to have plenty of money, and quite another to know how to spend it.”

[Illustration]

Now, as I told him, this kind of talk may do very well in Sennaar, but it is absurd in a country like ours. How are people to know that I’m rich, unless I show it? I’m sorry for it, but how shall I help it, having Mrs. P. at hand?

“How about the library?” said she one day.

“What library?” inquired I.

“Why, our library, of course.”

“I haven’t any.”

“Do you mean to have such a house as this without a library?”

“Why,” said I plaintively, “I don’t read books–I never did, and I never shall; and I don’t care anything about them. Why should I have a library?”

“Why, because it’s part of a house like this.”

“Mrs. P., are you fond of books?”

“No, not particularly. But one must have some regard to appearances. Suppose we are Hottentots, you don’t want us to look so, do you?”

I thought that it was quite as barbarous to imprison a lot of books that we should never open, and that would stand in gilt upon the shelves, silently laughing us to scorn, as not to have them if we didn’t want them. I proposed a compromise.

“Is it the looks of the thing, Mrs. P.?” said I.

“That’s all,” she answered.

“Oh! well, I’ll arrange it.”

So I had my shelves built, and my old friends Matthews and Rider furnished me with complete sets of handsome gilt covers to all the books that no gentleman’s library should be without, which I arranged carefully, upon the shelves, and had the best looking library in town. I locked ’em in, and the key is always lost when anybody wants to take down a book. However, it was a good investment in leather, for it brings me in the reputation of a reading man and a patron of literature.

Mrs. P. is a religious woman–the Rev. Cream Cheese takes care of that–but only yesterday she proposed something to me that smells very strongly of candlesticks.

“Pot., I want a _prie-dieu_.”

“Pray-do what?” answered I.

“Stop, you wicked man. I say I want a kneeling-chair.”

“A kneeling-chair?” I gasped, utterly confused.

“A _prie-dieu_–a _prie-dieu_–to pray in, you know.”

My Sennaar friend, who was at table, choked. When he recovered, and we were sipping the “Blue seal,” he told me that he thought Mrs. Potiphar in a _prie-dieu_ was rather a more amusing idea than Giddo’s Madonna in the dining-room.

“She will insist upon its being carved handsomely in walnut. She will not pray upon pine. It is a romantic, not a religious, whim. She’ll want a missal next; vellum or no prayers. This is piety of the ‘Lady Alice’ school. It belongs to a fine lady aid a fine house precisely as your library does, and it will be precisely as genuine. Mrs. Potiphar in a _prie-dieu_ is like that blue morocco Comus in your library. It is charming to look at, but there’s nothing in it. Let her have the _prie-dieu_ by all means, and then begin to build a chapel. No gentleman’s house should be without a chapel. You’ll have to come to it, Potiphar. You’ll have to hear Cream Cheese read morning prayers in a purple chasuble,–_que sais-je_? You’ll see religion made a part of the newest fashion in houses, as you already see literature and art, and with just as much reality and reason.”

Privately, I am glad the Sennaar minister has gone out of town. It’s bad enough to be uncomfortable in your own house without knowing why; but to have a philosopher of the Sennaar school show you why you are so, is cutting it rather too fat. I am gradually getting resigned to my house. I’ve got one more struggle to go through next week in Mrs. Potiphar’s musical party. The morning soirees are over for the season, and Mrs. P. begins to talk of the watering places. I am getting gradually resigned; but only gradually.

“Oh! dear me, I wonder if this is the “home, sweet home” business the girls used to sing about! Music does certainly alter cases. I can’t quite get used to it. Last week I was one morning in the basement breakfast-room, and I heard an extra cried. I ran out of the area door–dear me!–before I thought what I was bout, I emerged bareheaded from under the steps, and ran a little way after the boy. I know it wasn’t proper. I am sorry, very sorry. I am afraid Mrs. Croesus saw me; I know Mrs. Gnu told it all about that morning: and Mrs. Settum Downe called directly upon Mrs. Potiphar, to know if it were really true that I had lost my wits, as everybody was saying. I don’t know what Mrs. P. answered. I am sorry to have compromised her so. I went immediately and ordered a pray-do of the blackest walnut. My resignation is very gradual. Kurz Pacha says they put on gravestones in Sennaar three Latin words–do you know Latin? if you don’t come and borrow some of my books. The words are: _ora pro me!_”

IV.

FROM THE SUMMER DIARY OF MINERVA
TATTLE.

NEWPORT, _August_.

It certainly is not papa’s fault that he doesn’t understand French; but he ought not to pretend to. It does put one in such uncomfortable situations occasionally. In fact, I think it would be quite as well if we could sometimes “sink the paternal,” as Timon Croesus says. I suppose everybody has heard of the awful speech pa made in the parlor at Saratoga. My dearest friend, Tabby Dormouse, told me she had heard of it everywhere, and that it was ten times as absurd each time it was repeated. By the by, Tabby is a dear creature, isn’t she? It’s so nice to have a spy in the enemy’s camp, as it were, and to hear everything that everybody says about you. She is not handsome,–poor, dear Tabby! There’s no denying it but she can’t help it. I was obliged to tell young Downe so, quite decidedly, for I really think he had an idea she was good-looking. The idea of Tabby Dormouse being handsome! But she is a useful little thing in her way; one of my intimates.

The true story is this.

Ma and I had persuaded pa to take us to Saratoga, for we heard the English party were to be there, and we were anxious they should see _some_ good society at least. It seems such a pity they shouldn’t know what handsome dresses we really do have in this country! And I mentioned to some of the most English of our young men, that there might be something to be done at Saratoga. But they shrugged their shoulders, especially Timon Croesus and Gauche Boosey, and said–

“Well, really, the fact is, Miss Tattle, all the Englishmen I have ever met are–in fact–a little snobbish. However.”

That was about what they said. But I thought, considering their fondness of the English model in dress and manner, that they might have been more willing to meet some genuine aristocracy. Yet, perhaps, that handsome Col. Abattew is right in saying with his grand military air,–

“The British aristocracy, madam,–the British aristocracy is vulgar.”

Well, we all went up to Saratoga. But the distinguished strangers did not come. I held back that last muslin of mine, the yellow one, embroidered with the Alps, and a distant view of the isles of Greece worked on the flounces, until it was impossible to wait longer. I meant to wear it at dinner the first day they came, with the pearl necklace and the opal studs, and that heavy ruby necklace (it is a low-necked dress). The dining-room at the “United States” is so large that it shows off those dresses finely, and if the waiter doesn’t let the soup or the gravy slip, and your neighbor, (who is, like as not, what Tabby Dormouse, with her incapacity to pronounce the _r_, calls “some ‘aw, ‘uff man from the country,”) doesn’t put the leg of his chair through the dress, and if you don’t muss it sitting down–why, I should like to know a prettier place to wear a low-necked muslin, with jewels, than the dining-room of the “United States” at Saratoga.

Kurz Pacha, the Sennaar minister, who was up there, and who is so smitten with Mrs. Potiphar, said that he had known few happier moments in this country than the dining hour at the “United States.”

“When the gong sounds,” says he, “I am reminded of the martial music of Sennaar. When I seat myself in the midst of such splendor of toilette, and in an apartment so stately and so appropriate for that display, I recall the taste of the Crim Tartars, to whose ruler I had the honor of being first accredited ambassador. When I behold, with astonished eyes, the entrance of that sable society, the measured echo of whose footfalls so properly silences the conversation of all the nobles, I seem to see the regular army of my beloved Sennaar investing a conquered city. This, I cry to myself, with enthusiasm, this is the height of civilization; and I privately hand one of the privates in that grand army, a gold dollar, to bring me a dish of beans. Each green bean, O greener envoy extraordinary, I say to myself, with rapture, should be well worth its weight in gold, when served to such a congress of kings, queens, and hereditary prince royals as are assembled here. And I find,” continues the Pacha, “that I am right. The guest at this banquet is admitted to the freedom of corn and potatoes, only after negotiations with the sable military. It is quite the perfection of organization. What hints I shall gather for the innocent pleasure-seekers of Sennaar who still fancy that when they bargain for a draught of rose sherbet, they have tacitly agreed for a glass to drink it from!

“Why, the first day I came,” he went on, “I was going to my room, and met the chambermaid coming out. Now, as I had paid a colored gentleman a dollar for my dinner, in addition to the little bill which I settle at the office, I thought it was equally necessary to secure my bed by a slight fee to the goddess of the chambers. I therefore pulled out my purse, and offered her a bill of a small amount. She turned the color of tomatoes.

“‘Sir,’ exclaimed she, and with dignity, ‘do you mean to insult me?’

“‘Good heavens, miss,’ cried I, ‘quite the contrary,’ and thinking it was not enough, I presented another bill of a larger amount.

“‘Sir,’ said she, half sobbing, ‘you are no gentleman; I shall leave the house!’

“I was very much perplexed. I began again:

“‘Miss–my dear–I mean madam–how much _must_ I pay you to secure my room?’

“‘I don’t understand you, sir,’ replied the chambermaid, somewhat mollified.

“‘Why, my dear girl, if I paid Sambo a dollar for my dinner, I expect to pay Dolly something for my chamber, of course.’

“‘Well, sir, you are certainly very kind,–I–with pleasure, I’m sure,’ replied she, entirely appeased, taking the money and vanishing.

“I,” said Kurz Pacha, “entered my room and locked the door. But I believe I was a little hasty about giving her the money. The perfection of civilization has not yet mounted the stairs. It is confined to the dining-room. How beautiful is that strain from the _Favorita_, Miss Minerva, tum, tum, ti ti, tum tum, tee tee,” and the delightful Sennaar ambassador, seeing Mrs. Potiphar in the parlor, danced humming away.

There are few pleasanter men in society. I should think with his experience he would be hard upon us, but he is not. The air of courts does not seem to have spoiled him.

“My dear madam,” he said one evening to Mrs. Potiphar, “if you laugh at anything, your laughing is laughed at next day. Life is short. If you can’t see the jewel in the toad’s head, still believe in it. Take it for granted. The _Parisienne_ says that the English woman has no _je ne sais quoi_, The English woman says the _Parisienne_ has no _aplomb_. Amen! When you are in Turkey–why gobble. Why should I decline to have a good time at the Queen’s drawing-room, because English women have no _je ne sais quoi_, or at the grand opera, because French women lack _aplomb_? Take things smoothly. Life is a merry-go-round. Look at your own grandfather, dear Mrs. Potiphar,– fine old gentleman, I am told,–rather kept in what the artists call the middle-distance, at present,–a capital shoemaker, who did his work well–Alexander and John Howard did no more:–well here you are, you see, with liveries and a pew in the right church, and altogether a front seat in the universe–merry-go-round, you know; here we go up, up, up; here we go down, down, down, etc. By the bye, pretty strain that from Linda; tum tum, ti, tum tum,” and away hopped the Sennaar minister.

Mrs. Potiphar was angry. Who wouldn’t have been? To have the old family shoes thrown in one’s teeth! But our ambassador is an ambassador. One must have the best society, and she swallowed it as she has swallowed it a hundred times before. She quietly remarked–

“Pity Kurz Pacha drinks so abominably. He quite forgets what he’s saying!”

I suppose he does, if Mrs. P. says so; but he seems to know well enough all the time: as he did that evening in the library at Mrs. Potiphar’s, when he drew Cerulea Bass to the book-shelves, and began to dispute about a line in Milton, and then suddenly looking up at the books, said–

“Ah! there’s Milton; now we’ll see.” But when he opened the case, which was foolishly left unlocked, he took down only a bit of wood, bound in blue morocco, which he turned slowly over, so that everybody saw it, and then quietly returned it to the shelf saying only–

“I beg pardon.”

Old Pot, as Mrs. P. calls him, happened to be passing at the moment, and cried out in his brusque way–

“Oh! I haven’t laid in my books yet. Those are only samples–pattern-cards, you know. I don’t believe you’ll find there a single book that a gentleman’s library shouldn’t be without. I got old Vellum to do the thing up right, you know. I guess he knows about the books to buy. But I’ve just laid in some claret that you’ll like, and I’ve got a sample of the Steinberg. Old Corque understands that kind of thing, if anybody does.” And the two gentlemen went off to try the wine.

I am astonished that a man of Kurz Pacha’s tact should have opened the book-case. People have no right to suppose that the pretty bindings on one’s shelves are books. Why, they might as well insist upon trying if the bloom on one’s cheek, or the lace on one’s dress, or, in fact, one’s figure, were real. Such things are addressed to the eye. No gentleman uses his hands in good society. I’ve no doubt they were originally put into gloves to keep them out of mischief.

I am as bad as dear Mrs. Potiphar about coming to the point of my story. But the truth is, that in such engrossing places as Saratoga and Newport, it is hardly possible to determine which is the pleasantest and most important thing among so many. I am so fond of that old, droll Kurz Pacha, that if I begin to talk about him I forget everything else. He says such nice things about people that nobody else would dare to say, and that everybody is so glad to hear. He is invaluable in society. And yet one is never safe. People say he isn’t gentlemanly; but when I see the style of man that is called gentlemanly, I am very glad he is not. All the solemn, pompous men who stand about like owls, and never speak, nor laugh, nor move, as if they really had any life or feeling are called “gentlemanly.” Whenever Tabby says of a new man–“But then he is so gentlemanly!” I understand at once. It is another case of the well-dressed wooden image. Good heavens! do you suppose Sir Philip Sidney, or the Chevalier Bayard or Charles Fox, were “gentlemanly” in this way? Confectioners who undertake parties might furnish scores of such gentlemen, with hands and feet of any required size, and warranted to do nothing “ungentlemanly.” For my part, I am inclined to think that a gentleman is something positive, not merely negative. And if sometimes my friend the Pacha says a rousing and wholesome truth, it is none the less gentlemanly because it cuts a little. He says it’s very amusing to observe how coolly we play this little farce of life,–how placidly people get entangled in a mesh at which they all rail, and how fiercely they frown upon anybody who steps out of the ring. “You tickle me and I’ll tickle you; but at all events, you tickle me,” is the motto of the crowd.

“_Allons!_” says he, “who cares? lead off to the right and left–down the middle and up again. Smile all round, and bow gracefully to your partner; then carry your heavy heart up chamber, and drown in your own tears. Cheerfully, cheerfully, my dear Miss Minerva.–Saratoga until August, then Newport till the frost, the city afterwards; and so an endless round of happiness.”

And he steps off humming _Il segreto per esser felice!_

Well, we were all sitting in the great drawing-room at the “United States.” We had been bowling in our morning dresses, and had rushed in to ascertain if the distinguished English party had arrived. They had not. They were in New York, and would not come. That was bad, but we thought of Newport and probable scions of nobility there, and were consoled. But while we were in the midst of the talk, and I was whispering very intimately with that superb and aristocratic Nancy Fungus, who should come in but father, walking towards us with a wearied air, dragging his feet along, but looking very well dressed for him. I smiled sweetly when I saw that he was quite presentable, and had had the good sense to leave that odious white hat in his room, and had buttoned his waistcoat. The party stopped talking as he approached; and he came up to me.

“Minna, my dear,” said he, “I hear everybody is going to Newport.

“Oh! yes, dear father,” I replied, and Nancy Fungus smiled. Father looked pleased to see me so intimate with a girl he always calls “so aristocratic and high-bred looking,” and he said to her–

“I believe your mother is going, Miss Fungus?”

“Oh! yes, we always go,” replied she, “one must have a few weeks at Newport.”

“Precisely, my dear,” said poor papa, as if he rather dreaded it, but must consent to the hard necessity of fashion. “They say, Minna, that all the _parvenus_ are going this year, so I suppose we shall have to go along.”

There was a blow! There was perfect silence for a moment, while poor pa looked amiable as if he couldn’t help embellishing his conversation with French graces. I waited in horror; for I knew that the girls were all tittering inside, and every moment it became more absurd. Then out it came. Nancy Fungus leaned her head on my shoulder, and fairly shook with laughter. The others hid behind their fans, and the men suddenly walked off to the windows and slipped on to the piazza. Papa looked bewildered, and half smiled. But it was a very melancholy business, and I told him that he had better go up and dress for dinner.

It was impossible to stay after that. The unhappy slip became the staple of Saratoga conversation. Young Boosey (Mrs. Potiphar’s witty friend) asked Morris audibly at dinner, “Where do the _parvenus sit?_ I want to sit among the _parvenus_.”

“Of course you do, sir,” answered Morris, supposing he meant the circle of the _crême de la crême_.

[Illustration]

And so the thing went on multiplying itself. Poor papa doesn’t understand it yet, I don’t dare to explain. Old Fungus who prides himself so upon his family (it is one of the very ancient and honorable Virginia families, that came out of the ark with Noah, as Kurz Pacha says of his ancestors when he hears that the founder of a family “came over with the Conqueror,”) and who cannot deny himself a joke, came up to pa in the bar-room, while a large party of gentlemen were drinking cobblers, and said to him with a loud laugh:

“So all the _parvenus_ are going to Newport: are they, Tattle?”

“Yes!” replied pa, innocently, “that’s what they say. So I suppose we shall all have to go, Fungus.”

There was another roar that time, but not from the representative of Noah’s Ark. It was rather thin joking but it did very well for the warm weather, and I was glad to hear a laugh against anybody but poor pa.

We came to Newport, but the story came before us, and I have been very much annoyed at it. I know it is foolish for me to think of it. Kurz Pacha said:

“My dear Miss Minerva, I have no doubt it would pain you more to be thought ignorant of French than capable of deceit. Yet it is a very innocent ignorance of your father’s. Nobody is bound to know French; but you all lay so much stress upon it, as if it were the whole duty of women to have an ‘air’ and to speak French, that any ignorance becomes at once ludicrous. It’s all your own doing. You make a very natural thing absurd, and then grieve because some friend becomes a victim. There is your friend Nancy Fungus, who speaks ‘French as well as she does English.’ That may be true; but you ought to add, that one is of just as much use to her as the other–that is of no use at all, except to communicate platitudes. What is the use of a girl’s learning French to be able to say to young _Téle de Choux_, that it is a very warm day, and that will hardly be _spirituelle_ in her exotic French. It edge of French is going to supply her with ideas to express. A girl who is flat in her native English will hardly be _spirituelle_ in her exotic French. It is a delightful language for the natives, and for all who have thoroughly mastered its spirit. Its genius is airy and sparkling. It is especially the language of society, because society is, theoretically, the playful encounter of sprightliness and wit. It is the worst language I know of for poetry, ethics, and the habit of the Saxon mind. It is wonderful in the hands of such masters as Balzac and George Sand, and is especially adapted to their purposes. Yet their books are forbidden to Nancy Fungus, Tabby Dormouse, Daisy Clover, and all their relations. They read _Telemaque_, and long to be married, that they may pry into _Leila and Indiana_: their French meanwhile, even if they wanted to know anything of French literature,–which is too absurd an idea,–serves them only to say nothing to uncertain hairy foreigners who haunt society, and to understand their nothings, in response. I am really touched for this Ariel, this tricksy sprite of speech when I know that it must do the bidding of those who can never fit its airy felicity to any worthy purpose. I have tried these accomplishel damsels who speak French and Italian as well as they do English. But our conversation was only a clumsy translation of English commonplace. And yet, Miss Minerva, I think even so sensible a woman as you, looks with honor and respect upon one of that class. Dear me! excuse me! What am I thinking of? I’m engaged to drive little Daisy Clover on the beach at six o’clock. She is one of those who garnish their conversation with French scraps. Really you must pardon me, if she is a friend of yours; but that dry gentlemanly fellow, D’Orsay Firkin, says that Miss Clover’s conversation is a dish of _téte de veau farci_. Aren’t you coming to the beach? Everybody goes to-day. Mrs. Gnu has arrived, and the Potiphars are here,–that is, Mrs. P. Old Pot. arrives on Sunday morning early, and is off again on Monday evening. He’s grown very quiet and docile. Mrs. P. usually takes him a short drive on Monday morning, and he comes to dinner in a white waistcoat. In fact, as Mrs. Potiphar says, ‘My husband has not the air _distingué_ which I should be pleased to see in him, but he is quite as well as could be expected.’ Upon which Firkin twirls his hat in a significant way; you and I smile intelligently, dear Miss Minerva; Mrs. Green and Mrs Settum Downe exchange glances; we all understand Mrs. Potiphar and each other, and Mrs. Potiphar understands us, and it is all very sweet and pleasant, and the utmost propriety is observed, and we don’t laugh loud until we’re out of hearing, and then say in the very softest whispers, that it was a remarkably true observation. This is the way to take life, my dear lady. Let us go gently. Here we go backwards and forwards. You tickle, and I’ll tickle, and we’ll all tickle, and here we go round–round–roundy!”

And the Sennaar minister danced out of the room.

He is a droll man, and I don’t quite understand him. Of course I don’t entirely like him for it always seems as if he meant something a little different from what he says. Laura Larmes, who reads all the novels, and rolls her great eyes around the ball room,–who laughs at the idea of such a girl as Blanche Amory in Pendennis,–who would be pensive if she were not so plump,–who likes “nothing so much as walking on the cliff by moonlight,”–who wonders that girls should want to dance on warm summer nights when they have Nature, “and such nature” before them,–who, in fact, would be a mere emotion if she were not a bouncing girl,–Laura Larmes wonders that any man can be so happy as Kurz Pacha.

“Ah! Kurz Pacha,” she says to him as they stroll upon the piazza, after he has been dancing (for the minister dances, and swears it is essential to diplomacy to dance well), “are you really so very happy? Is it possible you can be so gay? Do you find nothing mournful in life?”

“Nothing, my best Miss Laura,” he replies, “to speak of; as somebody said of religion. You, who devote yourself to melancholy, the moon, and the source of tears, are not so very sad as you think. You cry a good deal, I don’t doubt. But when grief goes below tears, and forces you in self-defence to try to forget it, not to sit and fondle it,–then you will understand more than you do now. I pity those of your sex upon whom has fallen the reaction of wealth,–for whom there is no career,–who must sit at home and pine in a splendid ennui,–who have learned and who know, spite of sermons and ‘sound sensible view of things,’ that to enjoy the high ‘privilege of reading books,–of cultivating their minds; and, when they are married, minding their babies, and ministering to the drowsy, after-dinner ease of their husbands, is not the fulfilment of their powers and hopes. But, my amiable Miss Larmes, this is a class of girls and women who are not solicitous about wearing black when their great-aunt in Denmark dies, whom they never saw, nor when the only friend who made heaven possible to them, falls dead at their sides. Nor do they avoid Mrs. Potiphar’s balls as a happiness which they are not happy enough to enjoy–nor do they suppose that all who attend that festivity–dancing to Mrs. P.’s hired music and drinking Mr. P.’s fines wines–are utterly given over to hilarity and superficial enjoyment. I do not even think they would be likely to run–with rounded eyes, deep voice, and in very exuberant health–to any one of us jaded votaries of fashion, and say, How can you be so happy? My considerate young friend, ‘strong walls do not a prison make’–nor is a man necessarily happy because he hops. You are certainly not unhappy because you make eyes at the moon, and adjudge life to be vanity and vexation. Your mind is only obscured by a few morning vapors. They are evanescent as the dew, and when you remember them at evening they will seem to you but as pensive splendors of the dawn.”

Laura has her revenge for all this snubbing, of course. She does not attempt to disguise her opinion that Kurz Pacha is a man of “foreign morals,” as she well expresses it. “A very gay, agreeable man, who glides gently over the surface of things, but knows nothing of the real trials and sorrows of life,” says the melancholy Laura Larmes, whose appetite continues good, and who fills a large armchair comfortably.

It is my opinion, however, that people of a certain size should cultivate the hilarious rather than the unhappy. Diogenes, with the proportions of Alderman Gobble, could not have succeeded as a Cynic.

Here at Newport there is endless opportunity of detecting these little absurdities of our fellow-creatures. In fact, one of the greatest charms of a watering-place, to me, is the facility one enjoys of understanding the whole game, which is somewhat concealed in the city. Watering-place life is a full dress parade of social weaknesses. We all enjoy a kind of false intimacy, an accidental friendship. Old Carbuncle and young Topaz meet on the common ground of a good cigar. Mrs, Peony and Daisy Clover are intimate at all hours. Why? Because, on the one hand, Mrs. P. knows that youth, and grace and beauty, are attractive to men, and that if Miss Rosa Peony, her daughter, has not those advantages, it is well to have in the neighborhood a magnet strong enough to draw the men.

On the other hand, Daisy Clover is a girl of good sense enough to know–even if she didn’t know it by instinct–that men in public places like the prestige of association with persons of acknowledged social position, which, by hook or by crook, Mrs. Peony undoubtedly enjoys. Therefore, to be of Mrs. P.’s party is to be well placed in the catalogue–the chances are fairer–the gain is surer. Upon seeing Daisy Clover with quiet little Mrs. Clover, or plain old aunt Honeysuckle,–people would inquire, Who are the Clovers? And no one would know. But to be with Mrs. Peony, morning, noon, and night, is to answer all questions of social position.

But, unhappily, in the city things are changed. There no attraction is necessary but the fine house, gay parties, and understood rank of Mrs. Peony to draw men to Miss Rosa’s side. In Newport it does very well not to dance with her. But in the city it doesn’t do not to be at Mrs. Peony’s ball. Who knows it so well as that excellent lady? Therefore darling Daisy is dropped a little when we all return.

“Sweet girl,” Mrs. P. says, “really a delightful companion for Rosa in the summer, and the father and mother are such nice, excellent people. Not exactly people that one knows, to be sure–but Miss Daisy is really amiable and quite accomplished.”

Daisy goes to an occasional party at the Peonys. But at the opera and the theatre, and at the small intimate parties of Rosa and her friends, the darling Daisy of Newport is not visible. However, she has her little revenges. She knows the Peonys well: and can talk intelligently about them, which puts her quite on a level with them in the estimation of her own set. She rules in the lower sphere if not in the higher, and Daisy Clover is in the way of promotion. Yes, and if she be very rich, and papa and mamma are at all presentable, or if they can be dexterously hushed up, there is no knowing but Miss Daisy Clover will suddenly bloom upon the world as Mrs. P.’s daughter-in-law, wife of that “gentlemanly” young man, Mr. Puffer Peony.

Naturally it pains me very much to be obliged to think so of the people with whom I associate. But I suppose they are as good as any. As Kurz Pacha says: “If I fly from a Chinaman because he wears his hair long like a woman, I must equally fly the Frenchman because he shaves his like a lunatic. The story of Jack Spratt is the apologue of the world.” It is astonishing how intimate he is with our language and literature. By-the-bye, that Polly Potiphar has been mean enough to send out to Paris for the very silk that I relied upon as this summer’s _cheval de bataille_, arid has just received it superbly made up. The worst of it is that it is just the thing for her. She wore it at the hall the other night, and expected to have crushed me, in mine. Not she! I have not summered it at Newport for–well, for several years, for nothing, and although I am rather beyond the strict white muslin age, I thought I could yet venture a bold stroke. So I arrayed _à la_ Daisy Clover–not too much, _pas trop jeune_. And awaited the onset.

Kurz Pacha saw me across the room, and came up, with his peculiar smile. He did not look at my dress, but he said to me, rather wickedly, looking at my bouquet:

“Dear me! I hardly hoped to see spring flowers so late in the summer.”

Then he raised his eyes to mine, and I am conscious that I blushed.

“It’s very warm. You feel very warm, I am sure, my dear Miss Tattle,” he continued, looking straight at my face.

“You are sufficiently cool, at least, I think,” replied I.

“Naturally,” said he, “for I’ve been in the immediate vicinity of the boreal pole for half an hour–a neighborhood in which, I am told, even the most ardent spirits sometimes freeze–so you must pardon me if I am more than usually dull, Miss Minerva.”

And the Pacha beat time to the waltz with his head.

I looked at the part of the room from which he had just come, and there, sure enough, in the midst of a group, I saw the tall, and stately, and still Ada Aiguille.

“He is a hardy navigator,” continued Kurz Pacha, “who sails for the boreal pole. It is glittering enough, but shipwreck by daylight upon a coral reef, is no pleasanter than by night upon Newport shoals.”

“Have you been shipwrecked, Kurz Pacha?” asked I suddenly.

He laughed softly: “No, Miss Minerva, I am not one of the hardy navigators; I keep close in to the shore. Upon the slightest symptom of an agitated sea, I furl my sails, and creep into a safe harbor. Besides, dear Miss Minna I prefer tropical cruises to the Antarctic voyage.”

And the old wretch actually looked at my black hair. I might have said something–approving his taste, perhaps, who knows?–when I saw Mrs. Potiphar. She was splendidly dressed in the silk, and it’s a pity she doesn’t become a fine dress better. She made for me directly.

“Dear Minna, I’m so glad to see you. Why how young and fresh you look to-night. Really, quite blooming! And such a sweet pretty dress, too, and the darling baby-waist and all–“

“Yes,” said that witty Gauche Boosey, “permit me, Miss Tattle,–quite an incarnate seraphim, upon my word.”

“You are too good,” replied I, “my dear Polly, it is your dress which deserves admiration, and I flatter myself in saying so, for it is the very counterpart of one I had made some months ago.”

“Yes, darling, and which you have not yet worn,” replied she. “I said to Mr. P., ‘Mr. P.’ said I, ‘there are few women upon whose amiability I can count as I can upon Minerva Tattle’s, and, therefore, I am going to have a dress like hers. Most women would be vexed about it, and say ill-natured things if I did so. But if I have a friend, it is Minerva Tattle; and she will never grudge it to me for a moment.’ It’s pretty; isn’t it? Just look here at this trimming.”

And she showed me the very handsomest part of it, and so much handsomer than mine, that I can never wear it.

“Polly, I am so glad you know me so well,” said I. “I’m delighted with the dress. To be sure, it’s rather _prononce_ for your style; but that’s nothing.”

Just then a polka struck up. “Come along! give me this turn,” said Boosey, and putting his arm round Mrs. Potiphar’s waist, he whirled her off into the dance.

How I did hope that somebody would come to ask me. Nobody came.

“You don’t dance?” asked Kurz Pacha, who stood by during my little talk with Polly P.

“Oh, yes,” answered I, and hummed the polka.

Kurz Pacha hummed too, looked on at the dancers a few minutes then turned to me, and looking at my bouquet, said:

“It is astonishing how little taste there is for spring-flowers.”

At that moment young Croesus “came in” warm with the whirl of the dance, with Daisy Clover.

“It’s very warm,” said he, in a gentlemanly manner.

“Dear me! yes, very warm,” said Daisy.

“Been long in Newport?”

“No; only a few days. We always come, after, Saratoga for a couple of weeks. But isn’t it delightful?”

“Quite so,” said Timon, coolly, and smiling at the idea of anybody’s being enthusiastic about anything. That elegant youth has pumped life dry; and now the pump only wheezes.

“Oh!” continued Daisy, “it’s so pleasant to run away from the hot city, and breathe this cool air. And then Nature is so beautiful. Are you fond of Nature, Mr. Croesus?”

“Tolerably,”‘ returned Timon.

“Oh! but Mr. Croesus! to go to the glen and skip stones, and then walk on the cliff, and drive to Bateman’s, and the fort, and to go to the beach by moonlight; and then the bowling-alley, and the archery, and the Germania. Oh! it’s a splendid place. But perhaps, you don’t like natural scenery, Mr. Croesus?”

“Perhaps not,” said Mr. Croesus.

“Well, some people don’t,” said darling little Daisy, folding up her fan, as if quite ready for another turn.

“Come, now; there it is,” said Timon, and, grasping her with his right arm, they glided away.

“Kurz Pacha,” said I, “I wonder who sent Ada Aiguille that bouquet?”

“Sir John Franklin, I presume,” returned he.

“What do you mean by that,” asked I.

Before he could answer, Boosey and Mrs. Potiphar stopped by us.

“No, no, Mr. Boosey,” panted Mrs. P., “I will not have him introduced. They say his father actually sells dry goods by the yard in Buffalo.”

“Well, but _he_ doesn’t, Mrs. Potiphar.

“I know that, and it’s all very well for you young men to know him, and to drink, and play billiards, and smoke, with him. And he is handsome to be sure, and gentlemanly, and I am told, very intelligent. But, you know, we can’t be visiting our shoemakers and shopmen. That’s the great difficulty of a watering-place, one doesn’t know who’s who. Why Mrs. Gnu was here three summers ago, and there sat next to her, at table, a middle-aged foreign gentleman, who had only a slight accent, and who was so affable and agreeable, so intelligent and modest, and so perfectly familiar with all kinds of little ways, you know, that she supposed he was the Russian Minister, who, she heard, was at Newport incognito for his health. She used to talk with him in the parlor, and allowed him to join her upon the piazza. Nobody could find out who he was. There were suspicions, of course. But he paid his bills, drove his horses, and was universally liked. Dear me! appearances are so deceitful! who do you think he was?”

“I’m sure I can’t imagine.”

Well, the next spring she went to a music store in Philadelphia, to buy some guitar strings for Claribel, and who should advance to sell them but the Russian Minister! Mrs. Gnu said she colored–“

“So I’ve always understood,” said Gauche, laughing.

“Fie! Mr. Boosey,” continued Mrs. P. smiling. “But the music-seller didn’t betray the slightest consciousness. He sold her the strings, received the money, and said nothing, and looked nothing. Just think of it! She supposed him to be a gentleman, and he was really a music-dealer. You see that’s the sort of thing one is exposed to here, and though your friend may be very nice, it isn’t safe for me to know him. In a country where there’s no aristocracy one can’t be too exclusive. Mrs. Peony says she thinks that in future she shall really pass the summer in a farm-house or if she goes to a watering-place, confine herself to her own rooms and her carriage, and look at the people through the blinds. I’m afraid, myself, it’s coming to that. Everybody goes to Saratoga now, and you see how Newport is crowded. For my part I agree with the Rev. Cream Cheese, that there are serious evils in a republican form of government. What a hideous head-dress that is of Mrs. Settum Downe’s! What a lovely polka-redowa!”

“So it is, by Jove! Come on,” replied the gentlemanly Boosey, and they swept down the hall.

“_Ah! ciel!_” exclaimed a voice close by us–Kurz Pacha and I turned at the same moment. We beheld a gentleman twirling his moustache and a lady fanning. They were smiling intelligently at each other, and upon his whispering something that I could not hear, she said, “_Fi! donc_” and folding her fan and laying her arm upon his shoulder, they slid along again in the dance.

“Who is that?” inquired the Pacha.

“Don’t you know Mrs. Vite?” said I, glad of my chance. “Why, my dear sir, she is our great social success. She shows what America can do under a French _regime_. She performs for society the inestimable service of giving some reality to the pictures of Balzac and George Sand, by the quality of her life and manners. She is just what you would expect a weak American girl to be who was poisoned by Paris,–who mistook what was most obvious for what was most characteristic,–whose ideas of foreign society and female habits were based upon an experience of resorts, more renowned for ease than elegance,–who has no instinct fine enough to tell her that a _lionne_ cannot be a lady,–who imitates the worst manners of foreign society, without the ability or opportunity of perceiving the best,–who prefers a _double entendre_ to a _bon-mot_,–who courts the applause of men whose acquaintance gentlemen are careless of acknowledging,–who likes fast driving and dancing, low jokes, and low dresses, who is, therefore, bold without wit, noisy without mirth, and notorious without a desirable reputation. That is Mrs. Vite.”

Kurz Pacha rolled up his eyes.

“Good Jupiter! Miss Minerva,” cried he, “is this you that I hear? Why you are warmer in your denunciation of this little wisp of a woman than you ever were of fat old Madame Gorgon, with her prodigious paste diamonds. Really, you take it too hard. And you, too, who used to skate so nimbly over the glib surface of society, and cut such coquettish figures of eight upon the characters of your friends. You must excuse me, but it seems to me odd that Miss Minerva Tattle, who used to treat serious things so lightly, should now be treating light things so seriously. You ought to frequent the comic opera more, and dine with Mrs. Potiphar once a week. If your good humor can’t digest such a _hors d’oeuvre_ as little Mrs. Vite, what will you do with such a _pièce de résistance_ as Madame Gorgon?”

Odious plain speaker! Yet I like the man. But, before I could reply, up came another couple–Caroline Pettitoes and Norman de Famille.

“You were at the bowling-alley?” said he.

“Yes,” answered Caroline.

“You saw them together?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Why, of course, that if he is not engaged to her he ought to be. He has taken her out in his wagon three times, he has sent her four bouquets, he waltzes with her every night, he bowls with her party every morning, and if that does not mean that he wants to marry her, I should like to know what it does mean,” replied Caroline, tossing her head.

Norman de Famille smiled, and Caroline continued with rather a flushed face, because Norman had been doing very much the same thing with her:

“What is a girl to understand by such attentions?”

“Why, that the gentleman finds it an amusing game, and hopes she is equally pleased,” returned De Famille.

“_Merci_, M. de Famille,” said Caroline, with an energy I never suspected in her, “and at the end of the game she may go break her heart, I suppose.”

“Hearts are not so brittle, Miss Pettitoes,” replied Norman. “Besides, why should you girls always play for such high stakes?”

They were just about beginning the waltz again, when the music stopped, and they walked away. But I saw the tears in Caroline’s eyes. I don’t know whether they were tears of vexation, or of disappointment. The men have the advantage of us because they can control their emotions so much better. I suppose Caroline blushed and cried, because she found herself blushing and crying, quite as much as because she fancied her partner didn’t care for her.

I turned to Kurz Pacha, who stood by my side, smiling, and rubbing his hands.

“A charming evening we have had of it, Miss Minerva,” said he, “an epitome of life–a kind of last-new-novel effect. The things that we have heard and seen here, multiplied and varied by a thousand or so, produce the net result of Newport. Given, a large house, music, piazzas, beaches, cliff, port, griddle-cakes, fast horses, sherry-cobblers, ten-pins, dust, artificial flowers, innocence, worn-out hearts, loveliness, black-legs, bank-bills, small men, large coat-sleeves, little boots, jewelry, and polka-redowas _ad libitum_, to produce August in Newport. For my part, Miss Minerva, I like it. But it is a dizzy and perilous game. I profess to seek and enjoy emotions, so I go to watering-places. Ada Aiguille says she doesn’t like it. She declares that she thinks less of her fellow-creatures after she has been here a little while. She goes to the city afterward to refit her faith, probably. Daisy Clover thinks it’s heavenly. Darling little Daisy! life is an endless German cotillion to her. She thinks the world is gay but well-meaning, is sure that it goes to church on Sundays and never tells lies. Cerulea Bass looks at it for a moment with her hard, round, ebony eyes, and calmly wonders that people will make such fools of themselves. And you, Miss Minerva, pardon me,–you come because you are in the habit of coming–because you are not happy out of such society, and have a tantalizing sadness in it. Your system craves only the piquant sources of scandal and sarcasm, which can never satisfy it. You wish that you liked tranquil pleasures and believed in men and women. But you get no nearer than a wish. You remember when you did believe, but you remember with a shudder and a sigh. You pass for a brilliant woman. You go out to dinners and balls; and men are, what is called, ‘afraid of you.’ You scorn most of us. You are not a favorite, but your pride is flattered by the very fear on the part of others which prevents your being loved. Time and yourself are your only enemies, and they are in league, for you betray yourself to him. You have found youth the most fascinating and fatal of flirts, but he, although your heart and hope clung to him despairingly, has jilted you and thrown you by. Let him go, if you can, and throw after him the white muslin and the baby-waist. Give up milk and the pastoral poets. Sail, at least, under your own colors; even pirates hoist a black flag. An old belle who endeavors to retain by sharp wit and spicy scandal the place she held only in virtue of youth and spirited beauty is, in a new circle of youth and beauty, like an enemy firing at you from the windows of your own house. The difficulty of your position, dear Miss Minerva, is, that you can never deceive those who alone are worth deceiving. Daisy Clover and Young America, of course, consider you a talented, tremendous kind of woman. Daisy Clover wonders all the men are not in love with you. Young America sniffs and shakes its little head, and says disapprovingly, ‘Strong-minded woman!’ But you fail, you know, notwithstanding. You couldn’t bring old Potiphar to his knees when he first came home from China, and he must needs plunge in love with Miss Polly, whom you despised, but who has certainly profited by her intimacy with Mrs. Gnu, Mrs. Croesus, and Mrs. Settum Downe, as you saw by her conversation with you this evening.

“Ah, Miss Minerva, I am only a benighted diplomat from Sennaar, but when I reflect upon all I see around me in your country; when I take my place with terror in a railroad car, because the certainty of frightful accidents fills all minds with the same vague apprehensions as if a war were raging in the land; when I see the universal rush and fury–young men who never smile, and who fall victims to paralysis; old men who are tired of life and dread death; young women pretty and incapable; old women listless and useless; and both young and old, if women of sense, perishing of ennui, and longing for some kind of a career;–why, I don’t say that it is better anywhere else,–perhaps it isn’t,–in most ways it certainly is not. I don’t say certainly, that there’s a higher tone of life in London or Paris than in New York, but only that, whatever it may be there, this, at least, is rather a miserable business.”

“What is your theory of life, then?” asked I. “What do you propose?”

Kurz Pacha smiled again.

[Illustration]

“Suppose, Miss Minerva, I say the Golden Rule is my _theory_ of life. You think it vague; but it is in that like most theories. Then I propose that we shall all be good. Don’t you think it a feasible proposition? I see that you think you have effectually disposed of all complaint by challenging the complainer to suggest a remedy. But it is clear to me that a man in the water has a right to cry out, although he may not distinctly state how he proposes to avoid drowning. Your reasoning is that of those excellent Americans who declare that foreign nations ought not to strike for a republic until they are fit for a republic–as if empires and monarchies founded colleges to propagate democracy. Probably you think it wiser that men shouldn’t go into the water until they can swim. Mr. Carlyle, I remember, was bitterly reproached for grumbling in his “Chartism,” and other works, as if a man had no moral right to complain of hunger until he had grasped a piece of bread. ‘What do you propose to do, Mr. Carlyle?’ said they, ‘what with the Irish, for instance?’ Mr. C. said that he would compel every Irishman to work, or he would sink the island in the sea. ‘Barbarous man, this is your boasted reform!’ cried they in indignant chorus, unsuited either way, and permitting the Irish to go to the dogs in the meanwhile. So suffer me, dearest Miss Minerva, to regret a state of things which no sensible man can approve. Even if it seems to you light, allow me, at least, to treat it seriously, nor suppose I love anything less, because I would see it better. You are the natural fruit of this state of things, O Minerva Tattle! By thy fruits ye shall know them.”

After a few moments, he added in the old way:

“Don’t think I am going to break my heart about it, nor lose my appetite. Look at the absurdity of the whole thing. I am preaching to you in your baby-waist, here in a Newport ball-room at midnight. I humbly beg your pardon. There are more potent preachers here than I. Besides, I’m engaged to Mrs. Potiphar’s supper at 12. Take things more gently, dear Miss Minerva. Don’t make faces at Mrs. Vite, nor growl at your darling Polly. Women as smart as you are, will say precisely as smart thing of you as you say of them. We shall all laugh, first with you, and then at you. But don’t deny yourself the pleasure of saying the smart things in hope that they will also refrain. That’s vanity, not virtue. People are much better than you think, but they are also much worse. I might have been king of Sennaar, but I am only his ambassador. You might have been only a chambermaid, but you are the brilliant and accomplished Miss Tattle. Tum, tum, tum, ti, ti, ti,–what a pretty waltz! Here come Daisy and Timon Croesus, and now Mrs. Potiphar and Gauche Boosey, and now again Caroline Pettitoes and De Famille. She is smiling again, you see. She darts through the dance like a sunbeam as she is. Caroline is a philosopher. Just now, you remember, it was down, down, down,–now it is up, up, up. It is a good world, if you don’t rub it the wrong way. Sit in the sun as much as possible. One preserves one’s complexion, but gets so cold in the shade. Ah! there comes Mrs. Potiphar. Why, she is radiant! She shakes her fan at me. Adieu, Miss Minerva. Sweet dreams. To-morrow morning at the Bowling Alley at eleven, you know, and the drive at six. _Au revoir_.”

And he was gone. The ball was breaking up. A few desperate dancers still floated upon the floor. The chairs were empty. The women were shawling, and the men stood attendant with bouquets. I went to a window and looked out. The moon was rising, a wan, waning moon. The broad fields lay dark beneath, and as the music ceased, I heard the sullen roar of the sea. If my heart ached with an indefinite longing,–if it felt that the airy epicurism of the Pacha was but a sad cynicism, masquerading in smiles,–if I dreaded to ask whether the wisest were not the saddest,–if the rising moon, and the plunging sea, and the silence of midnight, were mournful, if I envied Daisy Clover her sweet sleep and vigorous waking,–why, no one need ever know it, nor suspect that the brilliant Minerva Tattle is a failure.

V.

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS.

A LETTER FROM MISS CAROLINE PETTITOES TO MRS. SETTUM DOWNE.

PARIS, _October_.

MY DEAR MRS. DOWNE,–Here we are at last! I can hardly believe it. Our coming was so sudden that it seems like a delightful dream. You know at Mrs. Potiphar’s supper last August in Newport, she was piqued by Gauche Boosey’s saying, in his smiling, sarcastic way:

“What! do you really think this is a pretty supper? Dear me! Mrs. Potiphar, you ought to see one of our _petits soupers_ in Paris, hey Croesus?” and then he and Mr. Timon Croesus lifted their brows knowingly, and smiled, and glanced compassionately around the table.

“Paris, Paris!” cried Mrs. Potiphar; “you young men are always talking about Paris, as if it were heaven. Oh! Mr. P., do take me to Paris. Let’s make up a party, and slip over. It’s so easy now, you know. Come, come, Pot. I know you won’t deny me. Just for two or three months, The truth is,” said she, turning to D’Orsay Firkin, who wore that evening the loveliest shirt-bosom I ever saw, “I want to send home some patterns of new dresses to Minerva Tattle.”

They all laughed, and in the midst Kurz Pacha, who was sitting at the side of Mrs. Potiphar, inquired:

“What colors suit the Indian summer best, Mrs. Potiphar?”

“Well, a kind of misty color,” said Boosey, laughingly, and emphasizing _missed_, as if he meant some pun upon the word.

“Which conceals the outline of the landscape,” interrupted Mrs. Gnu.

“Cajoling you with a sense of warmth on the very edge of winter, eh?” asked the Sennaar minister.

Another loud laugh rang round the table.

“I thought Minerva Tattle was a friend of yours, Kurz Pacha,” said Mrs. Gnu, smiling mischievously, and playing with her beautiful bouquet, which Mrs. Potiphar told me Timon Croesus had sent her.

“Certainly, so she is,” replied he. “Miss Minerva and I understand each other perfectly. I like her society immensely. The truth is, I am always better in autumn; the air is both cool and bright.”

As he said this he looked fixedly at Mrs. Gnu, and there was not quite so much laughing. I am sure I don’t know what they meant by talking about autumn. I was busy talking with Mr. Firkin about Daisy Clover’s pretty morning dress at the Bowling Alley, and admiring his shirt-bosom. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and an exquisite bouquet was handed in for Kurz Pacha.

“Why didn’t you wait until to-morrow?” said he, sharply.

The man stammered some excuse, and the ambassador took the flowers. Mrs. Gnu looked at them closely, and praised them very much, and quietly glanced at her own, which were really splendid. Kurz Pacha showed them to all the ladies at table, and then handed them to Mrs. Potiphar, saying to her, as he half looked at Mrs. Gnu:

“There is nothing autumnal here.”

“Mrs. Potiphar thanked him with real delight, and he turned toward Mrs. Gnu, at whom he had been constantly looking, and who was playing placidly with her bouquet, and said with an air of one paying a great compliment:

“To offer _you_ a bouquet, madame, would be to throw pearls before swine.”

We were all silent for a moment, and then the young men sprang up together, while we women laughed, half afraid.

“Good heavens! Kurz Pacha, what do you mean?” cried Mrs. Potiphar.

“Mean?” answered he, evidently confused, and blushing; “why, I’m afraid I have made some mistake. I meant to say something very polite, but my English sometimes gives way.”

“Your impudence never does,” muttered Mrs. Gnu, who was unbecomingly red in the face.

“My dear madame,” said the minister to her, “I assure you I meant only to use a proverb in a complimentary way; but somehow I have got the wrong pig by the ear.”

There was another burst of laughter. The young men fairly lay down and screamed. Mr. Potiphar exploded in great ha ha’s and ho ho’s, from the end of the table.

“Mrs. Potiphar,” said Mrs. Gnu, with dignity, “I didn’t suppose I was to be insulted at your table.”

And she went toward the door.

“Mrs. Gnu, Mrs. Gnu,” said Polly, smothering her laughter as well as she could, “don’t go. Kurz Pacha will explain. I’m sure he means no insult.”

Here she burst out laughing again; while the poor Sennaar Ambassador stood erect, and utterly confounded by what was going on.

“I’m sure–I didn’t know–I didn’t–I wouldn’t–Mrs. Gnu knows;” said he, in the greatest embarrassment. “I beg your pardon sincerely, madame.” And he looked so humble and repentant that I was really sorry for him; but I saw Mr. Firkin laughing afresh every time he looked at the Ambassador, as if he saw something sly behind his penitence.

“Perhaps,” said Firkin at last, “Kurz Pacha means to say that to offer flowers to a lady who has already so beautiful a bouquet, would be to carry coals to Newcastle.”

“That is it,” cried the Pacha; “to Newcastle,”–and he bowed to Mrs. Gnu.

“Come, Mrs. Gnu, it’s only a mistake,” said Mrs. Potiphar.

But Mrs. Gnu looked rather angry still, although Gauche Boosey tried very hard to console her, saying as many _bon mots_ as he could think of–and you know how witty he is. He said at last;

“Why is Mrs. Gnu like Rachel?”

“Rachel who?” asked I.

I’m sure it was an innocent question; but they all fell to laughing again, and Mr. Firkin positively cried with fun.

“D’ye give it up?” asked Mr. Boosey.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Potiphar.

“Why, because she will not be comforted.”

There wasn’t half so much laughing at this as at my question–although Mrs. Potiphar said it was capital, and I thought so too, when I found out who Rachel was.

But Mrs. Gnu continued to be like Rachel, and Mr. Boosey continued to try to amuse her. I think it was very hard she wouldn’t be amused by such a funny man; and he said at last aloud to her, meaning all of us to hear:

“Well, Mrs. Gnu, upon my honor, it is no epicure to try to console you.”

She did laugh at this, however, and so did the others.

“Have you ever been in Sennaar, Mr. Boosey?” said Kurz Pacha.

“No; why?”

“Why, I thought we might have learned English at the same school.”

Mr. Boosey looked puzzled; but Mr. Potiphar broke in:

“Well, Mrs. Gnu, I’m glad to see you smile at last. After all, the remark of the Ambassador’s was only what they would call in France, ‘a perfect bougie of a joke.'”

“Good evening, Mrs. Potiphar,” cried the Sennaar Minister, rising suddenly, and running toward the door. We heard him next under the window going off in great shouts of laughter, and whistling in the intervals, “Hail Columbia!” What shocking habits he has for a minister! I don’t know how it was that Mr. Potiphar was in such good humor; but he promised his wife that she should go to Paris, and that she might select her party. So she invited us all who were at the table. Mrs. Gnu declined: but I knew mamma would let me go with the Potiphars.

“Dear Pot.,” said Mrs. P., “we shall be gone so short a time, and shall be so busy, and hurrying from one place to another, that we had better leave little Freddy behind. Poor, dear little fellow, it will be much better for him to stay.”

Mr. P. looked a little sober at this; but he said nothing except to ask:

“Shall you all be ready to sail in a fortnight?”

“Certainly, in a week,” we all answered.

“Well, then, we must hurry home to prepare,” said he. “I shall write for state-rooms for us in Monday’s boat, Polly.”

“Very well; that’s a dear Pot.,” said she; and as we all rose she went up to him, and took his arm tenderly. It was an unusual sight: I never saw her do it before. Mrs. Gnu said to me:

“Well, really, that’s rather peculiar. I think people had better make love in private.”

“No, by Jove,” whispered Mr. Boosey to me; and I am afraid he had drank freely, as I have once or twice before heard that he did; but the world is such a gossip!–no, she doesn’t let _her_ good works of that kind shine before men.”

“Why, Mr. Boosey,” said I, “how can you?”

“Will you believe, darling Mrs. Downe, that instead of answering, he sort of winked at me, and said, under his voice, ‘Good night, Caroline.’ I drew myself up, you may depend, and said coldly:

“Good evening, Mr. Boosey.”

He drew himself up too, and said:

“I called you Caroline, you called me Mr. Boosey.”

And then looking straight and severely at me, he actually winked again.

Then of course, I knew he was not responsible for his actions.

Ah me, what things we are! Just as I was leaving the room with Mrs. Gnu, who had matronized me, Mr. Boosey came up with such a soft, pleading look in his eyes that seemed to say, “please forgive me,” and put out his hand so humbly, and appeared so sorry and so afraid that I would not speak to him, that I really pitied him: but when, in his low, rich voice, he said:

“Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered!”–

I couldn’t hold out; wasn’t it pretty? So I put out my hand, and he shook it tenderly, and said “tomorrow” in a way–well, dear Mrs. Downe, I will be frank with you–that made me happy all night.

At this rate I shall never get to Paris. But the next day it was known everywhere we were going and everybody congratulated us. Our party met at the Bowling Alley, and we began to make all kinds of plans.

“Oh! _we’ll_ take care of all the arrangements,” said Mr. Boosey, nodding toward Mr. Croesus and Mr. Firkin.

“Mr. Boosey, were you presented to the Emperor?” inquired Kurz Pacha.

“Certainly I was,” replied he; “I have a great respect for Louis Napoleon. Those Frenchmen didn’t know what they wanted; but he knew well enough what he wanted: they didn’t want him, perhaps, but he did want them, and now he has them. A true nephew of his uncle, Kurz Pacha; and you can see what a man the great Napoleon must have been, when the little Napoleon succeeds so well upon the strength of the name.”

“Why, you are really enthusiastic about the Emperors,” said the Ambassador.

“Certainly,” replied Mr. Boosey, “I have always been a great Neapolitan.”

Kurz Pacha stared at him a moment, and then took a large pinch of snuff solemnly. I think it’s very ill bred to stare as he does sometimes, when somebody has made a remark. I saw nothing particular in that speech of Mr. Boosey’s; and yet D’Orsay Firkin smiled to himself as he told Mrs. Gnu it was her turn.

“I wonder, my dear Mrs. Potiphar,” said the Sennaar Minister seating himself by her side, as the game went on, “that Europeans should have so poor an idea of America and Americans, when such crowds of the very best society are constantly crossing the ocean. Now, you and your friends are going to Paris, perhaps to other parts of Europe, and I should certainly suppose that, without flattery, (taking another pinch of snuff,) the foreigners whom you meet might get rid of some of their prejudices against the Americans. You will go, you know, as the representatives of a republic where social ranks are not organized to the exclusion of any; but where talent and character always secure social consideration. The simplicity of the republican idea and system will appear in your manners and modes of life. Leaving to the children of a society based upon antique and aristocratic principles, to squander their lives in an aimless luxury, you will carry about with you, as it were the fresh airs and virgin character of a new country and civilization. When you go to Paris, it will be like a sweet country breeze blowing into a perfumer’s shop. The customers will scent something finer than the most exquisite essence, and will prefer the fresh fragrance of the flower to the most elaborate distillation. Roses smell sweeter than attar of roses. You and your party, estimable lady, will be the roses. You will not (am I right _this_ time?) carry coals to Newcastle; for if any of your companions think that the sharp eye of Paris will not pierce their pretensions, or the satiric tongue of Paris fail to immortalize it, they mistake greatly. You cannot beat Paris with its own weapons; and Paris will immensely respect you if you use your own. Poor little Mrs. Vite thinks she passes for a _Parisienne_ in Paris. Why, there is not a _chiffonier_ in the street at midnight that couldn’t see straight through the little woman, and nothing would better please the _Jardin Mabille_ than to have her for a butt. My dear madame, the ape is a very ingenious animal, and his form much resembles the human. Moles, probably, and the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter, do not discern the difference; but I rather think we do. A ten-strike by Venus! well done, Mrs. Gnu,” cried the Ambassador; “now, Mrs. Potiphar.”

The Pacha didn’t play; but he asked Mr. Firkin what was a good average for a man, in the game.

“Well, a spare every time,” said he.

“Mr. Firkin,” asked Mrs. Gnu, “what is a good woman’s average?”

“Does any lady here know that?” inquired the Pacha, looking round.

“No,” said Mr. Boosey; “we must send and inquire of Miss Tattle.” “How pleasantly the game goes on, dear Mrs. Gnu,” said the Pacha; “but Miss Minerva ought to be here, she always holds such a good hand at every game.”

“I think,” said Mrs. Gnu, “that if she once got a good hold of any hand, she wouldn’t let it go immediately.”

“Good!” shouted Mr. Boosey.

“Hi! hi!” roared Mr. Potiphar.

The Pacha took snuff placidly, and said quietly:

“You’ve fairly trumped my trick, and taken it, Mrs. Gnu.”

“I should say the trick has taken her,” whispered Mr. Firkin at my elbow to Kurz Pacha.

The Sennaar Ambassador opened his eyes wide, and offered Mr. Firkin his snuff-box.

Monday came at length. It was well known that we were all going–the Potiphars and the rest of us. Everybody had spoken of the difficulty of getting state-rooms on the steamer to town, and hoped we had spoken in time.

“I have written and secured my rooms,” said Mr. Potiphar to everybody he met; “I am not to be left in the lurch, my dear sir, it isn’t my way.” And then he marched on, Gauche Boosey said, as if at least both sides of the street were his way. He’s changed a great deal lately.

The De Familles were going the same day. “Hope you’ve secured rooms, De Famille,” said Mr. Potiphar blandly to him.

“No,” answered he, shortly; “no, not yet; it isn’t my way; I don’t mean to give myself trouble about things; I don’t bother; it isn’t my way.”

And each went his own way up and down the street. But early on Monday afternoon Mr. De Famille and his family drove toward Fall Kiver, from which place the boat starts.

Monday evening the Potiphars and the rest of us went to the wharf at Newport, and presently the boat came up. We bundled on board, and as soon as he could get to the office Mr. Potiphar asked for the keys of his rooms.

“Why, sir,” said the clerk, “Mr. De Famille has them. He came on board at Fall Eiver and asked for your keys, as if the rooms had been secured for him.”

“What does that mean?” demanded Mr. Potiphar.

“Oh! ah! I remember now,” said Mr. Boosey. “I saw the De Familles all getting into a carriage for a little drive, as Mr. De F., said, about two o’clock this afternoon.”

Mr. Potiphar looked like a thunder-storm. “What the devil does it mean?” asked he of the clerk, while the passengers hustled him, and punched him, and the hook of an umbrella-stick caught in his cravat-knot, and untied it.

“Send up immediately, and say that Mr. Potiphar wants his state-rooms,” said he to the clerk.

In a few minutes the messenger returned and said–

“Mr. De Famille’s compliments to Mr. Potiphar. Mr. De Famille and his family have retired for the night, but upon arriving in the morning he will explain everything to Mr. Potiphar’s satisfaction.

“Jolly!” whispered Mr. Boosey, rubbing his hands, to Mr. Firkin, on whose arm I was leaning.

“Are you fond of the Italian opera, Mr. Potiphar?” inquired Kurz Pacha, blandly, Mrs. P. sat down upon a settee and looked at nothing.

“O Patience! do verify the quotation and smile,” said the Ambassador to her.

“It’s a mean swindle,” said Mr. Potiphar. “I’ll have satisfaction. I’ll go break open the door,” and he started.

“My dear, don’t be in a passion,” said Mrs. Potiphar, “and don’t be a fool. Remember that the De Familles are not people to be insulted. It won’t do to quarrel with the De Familles.”

“Splendid!” ejaculated Kurz Pacha.

“I’ve no doubt he’ll explain it all in the morning,” continued Mrs. Potiphar, “there’s some mistake; why not be cool about it? Besides, Mr. De Famille is an elderly gentleman and requires his rest. I do think you’re positively unchristian, Mr. Potiphar. The idea of insulting the De Familles!”

And Mrs. Potiphar patted her little feet upon the floor in front of the ladies’ cabin, where we were all collected.

“Where are you going to sleep?” asked Mr. Potiphar mildly.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered she.

We had an awful night. It was worse than any night at sea. Mrs. P. was propped up in one corner of a settee and I in the other, and when I was fixed comfortably there would come a great sea, and the boat would lurch, and I had to disarrange my position. It was horrid. But Mr. Potiphar was very good all night. He kept coming to see if Polly wanted anything, and if she were warm enough, and if she were well. Gauche Boosey, who was on the floor in the saloon, said he saw Mr. P. crawl up softly and try his state-room door. But it was locked, “and the snoring of old De Famille, who was enjoying his required rest,” said he, “came in regular broadsides through the blinds.”

I don’t know how Mr. De Famille explained. I only know Mrs. P. charged old Pot. to be satisfied with anything.

“There are some people, my darling Caroline,” she said to me, “with whom it does not do to quarrel. It isn’t christian to quarrel. I can’t afford to be on bad terms with the De Familles.”

“It is odd, isn’t it,” said Kurz Pacha to Mrs. P., as we were sailing down the harbor on our way to Europe, and talking of the circumstance of the state-rooms, “it is so odd, that in Sennaar, where to be sure, civilization has scarcely a foothold–I mean such civilization as you enjoy–this proceeding would have been called dishonest! They do have the oddest use of terms in Sennaar! Why, I remember that I once bought a sheep, and as it was coming to my fold in charge of my shepherd, a man in a mask came out of a wood and walked away with the sheep, and appropriated the mutton-chops to his own family uses. And those singular people in Sennaar called it stealing. Shall I ever get through laughing at them when I return! There ought to be missionaries sent to Sennaar. Do you think the Rev. Cream Cheese would go? How gracefully he would say: ‘Benighted brethren, in my country when a man buys a sheep or a state-room, and pays money for it, and another man appropriates it, depriving the rightful buyer of his chops and sheep, what does the buyer do? Does he swear? Does he rail? Does he complain? Does he even ask for the cold pickings? Not at all, brethren; he does none of these things. He sends Worcestershire sauce to the thief, or a pillow of poppies, and says to him, Friend, all of mine is thine, and all of thine is thine own. This, benighted people of Sennaar, is the practice of a Christian people. As one of our great poets says, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Think how delicately the Rev. Cream would pat his mouth with the fine cambric handkerchief, after rounding off such a homily! He might ask you and Mrs. Potiphar to accompany him as examples of this Christian pitch of self-sacrifice. On the whole, I wouldn’t advise you to go. The rude races of Sennaar, might put that beautiful forgiveness of yours to extraordinary proofs. Holloa! there’s a sea!”

We were dismally sea-sick. And I cared for nothing but arriving. Oh! dear, I think I would even have given up Paris, at least I thought so. But, oh! how _could_ I think so! Just fancy a place where not only your own maid speaks French, but where everybody, the porters, the coachmen, the chambermaids, can’t speak anything else! Where the very beggars beg, and the commonest people swear, in French! Oh! it’s inexpressibly delightful. Why, the dogs understand it, and the horses–“everybody,” as Kurz Pacha said to me, the morning after our arrival (for he insisted upon coming, “it was such a freak,” he said,) “everybody rolls in a luxury of French, and, according to the boarding-school standard, is happy.”

Everybody–but poor Mr. Potiphar!

He has a terrible time of it.

When we arrived we alighted at Meurice’s,–all the fashionable people do; at least Gauche Boosey said Lord Brougham did, for he used to read it in Galignani and I suppose it is fashionable to do as Lord Brougham does. D’Orsay Firkin said that the Hotel Bristol was more _récherché_.

“Does that mean cheaper?” inquired Mr. Potiphar.

Mr. Firkin looked at him compassionately.

“I only want,” said Mr. Potiphar, in a kind of gasping way, for it was in the cars on the way from Boulogne to Paris that we held this consultation–“I only want to go where there is somebody who can speak English.”

“My dear sir, there are Commissionaires at all the hotels who are perfect linguists,” said Mr. Firkin in a gentlemanly manner.

“Oh! dear me!” said Mr. P. wiping his forehead with the red bandanna that he always carries, despite Mrs. P., “what is a commissionaire?”

“An interpreter, a cicerone,” said Mr. Firkin.

“A guide, philosopher, and friend,” said Kurz Pacha.

“Kurz Pacha, do you speak French?” inquired Mr. P. nervously, as we rolled along.

“Oh! yes,” replied he.

“Oh! dear me!” said Mr. Potiphar, looking disconsolately out of the window.

We arrived soon after.

“We are now at the _Barrière_” said Mr. Firkin.

“What do we do there?” asked Mr. Potiphar.

“We are inspected,” said Mr. Firkin.

Mr. Potiphar drew himself up with a military air.

We alighted and walked into the room where all the baggage was arranged.

“_Est-ce qu’il y a quelque chose à déclarer?_” asked an officer, addressing Mr. Potiphar.

“Good heavens! what did you say?” said Mr. P., looking at him.

The officer smiled, and Kurz Pacha said something, upon which he bowed and passed on. We stepped outside upon the pavement, and I confess that even I could not understand everything that was said by the crowd and the coachmen. But Kurz Pacha led the way to a carriage, and we drove off to Meurice’s.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” said Mr. Potiphar, panting.

When we reached the hotel, a gentleman (Mr. Potiphar said he was sure he was a gentleman, from a remark he made–in English) came bowing out. But before the door of the carriage was opened, Mr. P. thrust his head out of the window, and holding the door shut, cried out, “Do you speak English here?”

“Certainly, sir,” replied the clerk; and that was the remark that so pleased Mr. Potiphar.

My room was next to the Potiphars, and I heard a great deal, you may be sure. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. The next morning, when they were about coming down, I heard Polly say–

“Now, Mr. Potiphar, remember, if you want to speak of your room it is _numero quatre-vingt cinq_” and she pronounced it very slowly. “Now try, Mr. P.”

“Oh! dear me. Kattery vang sank,” said he.

“Very good,” answered she; “_au troisième_; that means, on the third floor. Now try.”

“O tror–Otrorsy–O trorsy–Oh! dear me!” muttered he in a tone of despair.

“_ème_,” said Mrs. P.

“Aim,” said he.

“Well?” said Mrs. P.

“O trorsyaim,” said he.

“That’s very well, indeed!” said Mrs. Potiphar, and they went out of the room. I joined them in the hall, and we ran on before Mr. P., but we soon heard some one speaking, and stopped.

“_Monsieur, veut il prendre un commissionaire?_”

“Kattery–vang–sank,” replied Mr. Potiphar, with great emphasis.

“_Comment?_” said the other.

“O tror–O tror–Oh! Polly–seeaim–seeaim!” returned Mr. P.

“You speak English,” said the commissionaire.

“Why! good God! do _you?_” asked Mr. P., with astonishment.

“I speaks every languages, sare,” replied the other, “and we will use the English, if you please. But Monsieur speaks _très bien_ the French language.”

“Are you speaking English now?” asked Mr. Potiphar.

The commissionaire answered him that he was,–and Mr. P. thrust his arm through that of the commissionaire and said–

“My dear sir, if you are disengaged I should be very glad if you would accompany me in my walks through the town.”

“Mr. Potiphar!” said Polly, “come!”

“Coming, my dear,” answered he, as he approached with the commissionaire. It was in vain that Mrs. P. winked and frowned. Her husband would not take hints. So taking his other arm, and wishing the commissionaire good morning, she tried to draw him away. But he clung to his companion and said,

“Polly, this gentleman speaks English.”

“Don’t keep his arm,” whispered she; “he is only a servant.”

“Servant, indeed!” said he; “you should have heard him speak French, and you see how gentlemanly he is.”

It was some time before Polly was able to make her husband comprehend the case.

“Ah!” said he, at length; “Oh! I understand.”

All our first days were full of such little mistakes. Kurz Pacha come regularly to see us, and laughed more than I ever saw him laugh before. The young men were away a great deal, which was hardly kind. But they said they must call upon their old acquaintances; and Polly and I expected every day to be called upon by their lady friends.

“It’s very odd that the friends of these young men don’t call upon us,” said Mrs. Potiphar to Kurz Pacha; “it would be only civil.”