I went along through a great wide door into a room all set off with blue, that had a pen full of fiddlers at the further eend, where some folks from Turkey and Amsterdam were a whirling the foreign gals round and round like so many horses a grinding cider. I couldn't look at 'em without feeling my dander rise, yet I couldn't help but be sort of glad that the great people from foreign parts made as tarnal coots of themselves as we du here to hum. There wasn't a gal dressed out like a true born American among 'em; but the way they did flirt round with the men a hugging them, and the light a pouring down from the heaps of glass and white candles over head, was as bad as I ever see in a rale York party. It kinder made me dizzy to look on, so I jest turned my back and begun to take an observation of the consarned harnsome picters that hung agin the wall and listened to the music that come a streaming from the fiddle and horns and bass viols as slick as a streak of chalk iled at both eends. By-am-by I seemed to git tired of that, so up I went to see if I couldn't find out where the Kings and Queens had hid to; for I had a kind of a hankerin notion to see what kind of stuff they were made on.
Wal, I went along the entry-way, only jest stopping time enough to take a swig of drink from the stun table, till I got into a room where they kept the Kings and Queens. The light come down almighty powerful over the great thick red carpet, and the settees and foot-stools and chairs glistened out like a bed of tulips in a hot sun. But the Queens, it raly did make me ketch my breath to look on 'em. Sich consarned beautiful critters I never did see. They beat all horned cattle that ever I sot eyes on. One on 'em sot on a foot-stool, with her feet sort of crossed in a letter X. She had shiney trousers on, all spangled off, and a kind of a silk frock-coat puckered up awfully at the waist, with a lot of them shiney stuns round her neck, and on her arms, and among her thick hair, and all over, till she glistened as if she'd been out among a storm of firebugs. There was a leetle hump-backed critter of a man, all finefied off with satins, and feathers, and velvet, and gold; but a darn'd queer shote he was for a king! So I jest went by him, and the odd looking Queen squat on the foot-stool that he was a talking to, as chipper as could be, and sidled sort of bashful, woodchuck and all, up to a tall, harnsome, stuck-up looking Queen, that stood a talking to a chap with a great long feather in his cap, that they called a Night. She had on a great long shiney velvet dress, that streamed out behind like the tail of a comet, and round her beautiful head was a rale ginuine crown, that seemed as if it struck fire every time she moved her head; it raly made my eyes snap to look on it.
Think sez I to myself, "Wal, I never did speak to a Queen yit—but, by gaully! I'll have a try at it this time—Injun or no Injun."
I didn't exactly know how to begin, but I'd heard say that folks always got down on their marrow bones when they spoke to sich stuck up quality; and think sez I, what's manners for a white man, must be manners for an Injun. So I went whop down on my knees, and sez I—"Look a here, Marm Queen, shouldn't you like a nation well to have a look at a rale prime Yankee woodchuck? They are curious critters, I call tell you!"
With that, I held up the consarned little critter, and begun to stroke down his back as if he'd been a pussy cat.
The Queen kinder jumped and stepped back, and said, "Oh, my!" and a leetle finefied boy, dressed off to kill, that stood behind her a holding up the eend of her frock, he begun to snicker, and at last he tee-heed right out.
Arter a minit, the Queen begun to larf too, and she sartinly was about the sweetest lookin critter that I ever did see, with her purty mouth opening like a red rose-bud, and her leetle white teeth a shining inside.
"Before I take your medicine," sez she, "tell me what tribe you belong to?"
I didn't know what on arth to say, for I never could twist my jaws with one of them crooked Injun names—but, sez I to myself, I calculate that a queen aint nothing but a woman arter all, and it'll only make her think the more of me if I keep dark, so I shook my head as if there was a good deal in it, and sez I—