I didn't think that exactly a proper place to be introducing people in, and measured off my bow accordingly, and passed on without troubling myself about the ladies around him, who seemed to wonder at it. As if I wanted to know them!
When we got into the crowd again, I whispered to Dempster:
"Do tell me where the foreign ministers are!"
"The Ministers! Why you have just been presented to the very highest of them," says Dempster.
"What, that man," says I, "with precious stones a-twinkling on his shirt-bosom, and a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole, who seems to have cut up his words with a chopping knife? You couldn't make me believe that, Dempster!"
"But it is, upon my honor, Phœmie; and those gentlemen standing around him are all Ministers, or persons sent out with them. Almost every civilized nation is represented here to-night."
I looked around at the persons Dempster pointed out—some were young, some old, some you could understand, others you couldn't; most of them were talking and laughing with the ladies around them. I didn't see a downright serious face in the whole crowd.
"Them ministers!" I said, scorning Dempster's attempt to deceive me.
"Every one of them is a Minister now, or means to be."
"Dempster, I don't believe you."