MR. POTTS FINDS HIMSELF IN THE WRONG APARTMENT.
Had Mr. Potts been writing his own biography, the next few minutes must have been a blank, so far as any definite reminiscences on his own part were concerned. He has a dim recollection of stammering out something about “mistaking the room,” the “industry of Penelope,” and “begging pardon;” then he remembers somebody, he hardly knows whether himself or not, rushing down-stairs, and passing through a door held open before him. Then he said, or heard somebody say something about “compliments of the season,” “many returns,” “fine day,” “the gentlemen are favored,” “make many calls?” At last, when he fully came to himself, he found that he was sitting in a drawing-room, his hat between his knees, and a cup of coffee in his hand. Near him was a table upon which, instead of a vulgar eating-house display of all the “delicacies of the season,” was simply a massive coffee-urn, and two or three articles of plate. Before the table stood a lovely figure dressed in the purest white, her countenance lit up with the most enchanting smile in the world.
Mr. Potts found himself in the very situation in which he had hoped to be. He had been the first to make his appearance that morning, and he thought himself sure of a long tête-à-tête with the fair Mary Briggs. In anticipation of this he had conned over in his own mind a variety of brilliant remarks, with which he purposed to enliven the conversation, and which he fully intended should impress upon her mind the conviction that he was an extremely agreeable young man. But things never turn out in such cases precisely as one has arranged them. The gentleman himself was not over-gifted with extempore conversational powers, and the adventures of the morning had not tended to remedy the deficiency. He quite forgot the criticisms which—à propos of the Opera—he had intended to make upon Truffi and Parodi, Benedetti and Beneventano, for the getting-up of which he had almost learned by heart the cant of the musical critics. Even his raptures about Jenny Lind came coldly off. But the liveliness of the lady made amends for his deficiencies: the more silent and embarrassed he became, the more brilliant and charming she grew, and the more earnestly
were his eyes fixed upon the charming countenance that beamed down upon him.
