“You play superbly, Baron,” at length said one of the four travellers.
“Sir,” said the sovereign chief, “it is impossible to play ill on such an instrument as this. I adore my wife; I love my subjects, whom I would dress like Parisians if they would only heed me; but I venerate my violin.”
“He has caught heathenism, and worships his fiddle,” whispered Chalton to a missionary on his right hand.
“This violin, Sir,” resumed the Baron, “has seen as many lands as the Wandering Jew. It had been all over the world before it got into the hands of Platt; and it has been all over the world since it left them.”
“And who is Platt?” said the missionary.
“Platt, Sir,” answered the Baron, “was one of the first violin-players in England; but he was afflicted with modesty, and consequently was only known to his friends. He led your Duke of Cumberland’s private band at Kew,—and what a well-dressed band that was! it did honour to its tailor; and it had a European reputation for excellence. I wish I were as rich as a duke, and possessed so great a maestro di capella.”
The Baron then proceeded to enlarge upon his position and prospects, entered into discussion on his rights, and pronounced himself a sterling king, in spite of Lord Stanley, the British Queen, or the English Ministry. “I would make these islanders,” said he, “the best-dressed people out of France,—and if they could but acknowledge my principles, I would myself furnish them with paletots; but they denounce my tyranny, and laugh at me when I offer to put them into the dignity of trousers.”
To hear this mock potentate speak of his people, his dominions, religious toleration, the rights of man, and the duties of monarchs, one might have concluded that he really was a recognized sovereign, with an actual kingdom, a people to protect, parties to reconcile, a faith to uphold, and responsibilities to oppress him. Beyond his musical instruments, his solitary instrumental duet, his fish-kettle, an old ‘Journal des Modes,’ and some needles, he can scarcely be said to have had at this moment a single possession incontestably his own.
As the party of travellers, after sleeping in the hut, proceeded on the following morning to their boat, they were accompanied to the beach by their entertainer, who expressed his hopes of meeting with them again. But this was not to be.