Leah. "Oh, Barty, don't give yourself away—don't talk to him about your writings, or about yourself, or about your family. He'll vulgarize you all over France. Surely you've not forgotten that nice 'gentleman' from America who came to see you, and who told you that he was no interviewer, not he! but came merely as a friend and admirer—a distant but constant worshipper for many years! and how you talked to him like a long‑lost brother, in consequence! 'There's nobody in the world like the best Americans,' you said. You adored them all, and wanted to be an American yourself—till a month after, when he published every word you said, and more, and what sort of cravat you had on, and how silent and cold and uncommunicative your good, motherly English wife was—you, the brilliant and talkative Barty Josselin, who should have mated with a countrywoman of his own! and how your bosom friend was a huge, overgrown everyday Briton with a broken nose! I saw what he was at, from the low cunning in his face as he listened; and felt that every single unguarded word you dropped was a dollar in his pocket! How we've all had to live down that dreadfully facetious and grotesque and familiar article he printed about us all in those twenty American newspapers that have got the largest circulation in the world! and how you stamped and raved, Barty, and swore that never another American 'gentleman' should enter your house! What names you called him: 'cad!' 'sweep!' 'low‑bred, little Yankee penny‑a‑liner!' Don't you remember? Why, he described you as a quite nice‑looking man somewhat over the middle height!"
"Oh yes; damn him, I remember!" said Barty, who was three or four inches over six feet, and quite openly vain of his good looks.
Leah. "Well, then, pray be cautious with this Monsieur Paroly you think so much of because he's French. Let him talk—interview him—ask him all about his family, if he's got one—his children, and all that; play a game of billiards with him—talk French politics—dance 'La Paladine'—make him laugh—make him smoke one of those strong Trichinopoli cigars Bob gave you for the tops of omnibuses—make him feel your biceps—teach him how to play cup and ball—give him a sketch—then bring him in to tea. Madame Cornelys will be there, and Julia Ironsides, and Ida, who'll talk French by the yard. Then we'll show him the St. Bernards and Minerva, and I'll give him an armful of Gloire de Dijon roses, and shake him warmly by the hand, so that he won't feel ill‑natured towards us; and we'll get him out of the house as quick as possible."
Thus prepared, Barty awaited M. Paroly, and this is a free rendering of what M. Paroly afterwards wrote about him:
"With a mixture of feelings difficult to analyze and define, I bade adieu to the sage and philosopher of Cheyne Row, and had myself transported in my hansom to the abode of the other great sommité littéraire in London, the light one—M. Josselin, to whom we in France also are so deeply in debt.
"After a longish drive through sordid streets we reached a bright historic vicinity and a charming hill, and my invisible Jehu guided me at the great trot by verdant country lanes. We turned through lodge gates into a narrow drive in a well‑kept garden where there was a lawn of English greenness, on which were children and nurses and many dogs, and young people who played at the lawn‑tennis.
"The door of the house was opened by a charming young woman in black with a white apron and cap, like a waitress at the Bouillon Duval, who guided me through a bright corridor full of pictures and panoplies, and then through a handsome studio to a billiard‑room, where M. Josselin was playing at the billiard to himself all alone.
"M. Josselin receives me with jovial cordiality; he is enormously tall, enormously handsome, like a drum‑major of the Imperial Guard, except that his lip and chin are shaved and he has slight whiskers; very well dressed, with thick curly hair, and regular features, and a singularly sympathetic voice: he is about thirty‑five.