“And when they are at all well-looking they're intolerable,” broke in number three, who had been coolly scanning me through her eyeglass.
The tutor by this time had evidently received his instructions in full, and beckoned me to follow him into a small room adjoining the saloon. I obeyed; and scarcely had the door closed upon us than I started, and broke out into an involuntary exclamation of surprise. The individual before me was no other than my first friend, the kind youth who had taken me by the hand at the very outset of my career, the student of Trinity, Dublin, named Lyndsay.
As I perceived that he did not recognize me, I had time enough to observe him well, and mark the change which more than twelve years had wrought upon him. Though still young, anxiety and mental exertion had worn him into premature age. His eye was dulled, his cheeks pale and sunken, and in his manner there was that timid hesitation that stood abashed in the presence of my own cool effrontery. I could see easily that the man of thought and reflection was succumbing before the man of action and of the world, and I was selfish enough to revel in the triumph.
In a low, diffident voice he proceeded to ask me if there was anything in the nature of my situation that induced me to quit a service where I had given the fullest satisfaction.
I replied by an easy caress of my long black moustache, and a certain expressive gesture of the shoulders, meant to convey that my objections were of a nature that did not admit exactly of discussion,—rather questions of delicate personal feeling than of actual difficulty. Hinted that I had rarely served anything less than a royal highness, and feared that I should be likely to injure myself,—of degenerating into an easy and familiar manner, by associating with those so nearly of my own level.
I saw the blood mantle in the pale cheek of the student as he listened to this impertinence, and thought that I could mark the struggle that was passing within him, while, in a calm, collected tone, he said that those were questions on which he could not give any opinion, and that if I desired to leave, of course no further objections would be offered. “Might I ask,” added he, with a manner where a most courteous politeness prevailed,—“might I ask what are the qualifications of a person in your condition of life?”
“I think,” replied I, “that I appreciate the meaning of your question. You would ask by what right a man humbly born, educated to mere menial duties, can aspire to the position and the pay a courier claims. I am willing to tell you. To begin, then: He must be familiar with the geography of Europe,—I speak here of the merely Continental courier,—he must know the boundaries, the high roads, the coinage, the customs, the privileges of every petty State, from the smallest principality of Germany to the greatest sovereignty of a Czar. He must know the languages, not as scholars and grammarians know them, but in all their dialects and 'patois.' It is not enough that he has learned the tongue in which Dante wrote, or Metastasio sung, he must speak Venetian and Milanese, Neapolitan and Piedmontese. He should know the Low German of the Black Forest, the Wiener dialect of the Austrian, and talk every gradation of French, from the frontiers of Flanders to the vine-groves of Provence and Auvergne. He must be as familiar with every city of Europe as though it were his birthplace; with the churches, the galleries, their monuments, and their history. He must know the delicacies of each land, and every rarity it can produce for the palate of the epicure. He must be a connoisseur in wine, pictures, china, cuisine, statuary, engravings, armor, ancient furniture, manuscripts, horseflesh, the drama, and Bohemian glass; able to pack a trunk, or expatiate upon a Titian; to illustrate a fresco, to cheat a custom-house, to bully a prefect, make an omelette, ride postilion. These, with a running knowledge of international law and the Code Napoléon, and some skill in all the minor operations of surgery,—these are a brief summary of a courier's qualifications.”
“And do you tell me, friend,” said he, earnestly, “that you can do all this?”
“Indifferent well,” said I, carelessly. “There are, doubtless, others who have gained a higher proficiency in the craft; but as I am still young, I'll not despair of future eminence.”
He heaved a deep sigh, and leaned his head upon his hand.