“If you will come this way, sir, his Excellency will see you.”
He led me through three or four salons handsomely furnished and ornamented with pictures, the most conspicuous of which, in each room, was a life-sized portrait of the same gentleman, though in a different costume,—now in the Windsor uniform, now as a Guardsman, and, lastly, in the full dress of the diplomatic order. I had but time to guess that this must be his Excellency, when the servant announced me and retired.
It is in deep shame that I own that the aspect of the princely apartments, the silence, the implied awe of the footman's subdued words as he spoke, had so routed all my intentions about calling his Excellency to account that I stood in his presence timid and abashed. It is an ignoble confession wrung out of the very heart of my snobbery, that no sooner did I find myself before that thin, pale, gray-headed man, who in a light silk dressing-gown and slippers sat writing away, than I gave up my brief, and inwardly resigned my place as a counsel for injured innocence.
He never raised his head as I entered, but continued his occupation without noticing me, muttering below his breath the words as they fell from his pen. “Take a seat,” said he, curtly, at last. Perceiving now that he was fully aware of my presence, I sat down without reply. “This bag is late, Mr. Paynter,” said he, blandly, as he laid down his pen and looked me in the face.
“Your Excellency will permit me, in limine, to observe that my name is not Paynter.”
“Possibly, sir,” said he, haughtily; “but you are evidently before me for the first time, or you would know that, like my great colleague and friend, Prince Metternich, I have made it a rule through life never to burden my memory with whatever can be spared it, and of these are the patronymics of all subordinate people; for this reason, sir, and to this end, every cook in my establishment answers to the name of Honoré, my valet is always Pierre, my coach-. man Jacob, my groom is Charles, and all foreign messengers I call Paynter. The original of that appellation is, I fancy, superannuated or dead, but he lives in some twenty successors who carry canvas reticules as well as he.”
“The method may be convenient, sir, but it is scarcely complimentary,” said I, stiffly.
“Very convenient,” said he, complacently. “All consuls I address as Mr. Sloper. You can't fail to perceive how it saves time, and I rather think that in the end they like it themselves. When did you leave town?”
“I left on Saturday last. I arrived at Dover by the express train, and it was there that the incident befell me by which I have now the honor to stand before your Excellency.”
Instead of bestowing the slightest attention on this exordium of mine, he had resumed his pen and was writing away glibly as before. “Nothing new stirring, when you left?” said he, carelessly.