“There is, indeed, a regrettable tendency to deify common clay nowadays,” assented the patroon, soothingly.
“Why, your ‘Citizen’ regards it as condescension to notice a man of condition!” said the marquis, violently. “When my king was driven away by the rabble 225 the ocean was not too broad to separate me from a swinish civilization. I will never go back; I will live there no more!”
“That is good news for us,” returned the land baron.
“Your politeness almost reconciles me to staying,” said the old man, more affably. “But I am on my way to the club. What do you say to a rubber?”
The patroon readily assented. In front of the hotel waited the marquis’ carriage, on the door of which was his coat-of-arms––argent, three mounts vert, on each a sable bird. Entering this conveyance, they were soon being driven over the stones at a pace which jarred every bone in the marquis’ body and threatened to shake the breath of life from his trembling and attenuated figure. He jumped about like a parched pea, and when finally they drew up with a jerk and a jolt, the marquis was fairly gasping. After an interval to recover himself, he took his companion’s arm, and, with his assistance, mounted the broad steps leading to the handsome and commodious club house.
“At least,” said the nobleman, dryly, as he paused on the stairs, “our pavements are so well-kept in Paris that a drive there in a tumbril to the scaffold is preferable to a coach in New Orleans!”