Some day a learned monograph will be published of this people, their language, their faith, their customs; and the philologists will fight over their origin, and the plough of civilization will pass over their poor, mud-built city; but Grace was interested in meeting the enthusiast through whose courage, energy, and devotion so much had been rescued as a text-book for historical research. It was a fine, sonorous note in the diapason of American character, and the young Englishwoman heard it with pleasure.
That evening she and her brother dined with Mrs. Caldwell. It was not a large party; and the guests, with the exception of Mrs. Flynn and her cousin, were all men—mostly men distinguished in some way other than that of having amassed large fortunes.
It is true that Alan Brown, the young Anglomaniac—"and stupid at that," as May Clayton said—was present, but as he sat next Doreen, to whom he talked in a low tone, his insignificance was not offensive. Brilliant Chudleigh, the advocate, whose scathing eloquence was a proverb, jovial Dr. Parr, simmering with fun, ready to boil over at any moment, wise and witty General Stout, famous in the war, and now in peace time as great a favorite with women as with men, the poet Sloper, so gently humorous, so blandly pungent, Mordaunt's shrewd friend Reid, and two others, whom the Ballingers had not met before, threw their separate contributions into the common pool, and produced that best of round games—general conversation. No one monopolized the talk, but the men had the best of it. May Clayton held her own, it is true; the provocation of her nimble tongue stimulated the clever elders around; her sallies elicited peals of laughter; and from time to time, when there was a lull, she set the humming-top—as with a neat flick of the whip—once more frantically spinning. But as dinner progressed, and the conversation, leaving generalities, entered into the arena of personal chaff, the spur of the girl's tongue was not needed. The combatants were on their mettle, with a gallery to applaud their brilliant attacks and retorts, their assaults, and reprises, and carrying of the war into the enemy's country; each man had his bout, and the fooling, conducted with perfect good humor, was delightful. Such a contest would not be possible in England. In chaff, we hold that all is permissible but the truth. But here to wound one of these dexterous knights, armed cap-à-pie, seemed impossible. Chudleigh had tried for the Presidency of the United States, and had failed. The mock commiseration he met with at the hands of Parr, who deplored the waste of fine oratory spilled upon that occasion, was countervailed by the satirical sympathy Chudleigh affected in rounded periods at the charges of bribery and corruption brought in the public prints against a well-known body, of which the M.D. was a leading member. This spear-thrust might have been expected to pierce his armor. Not at all; he rode on laughing, and apparently untouched. Then it was proposed that government should be memorialized to create the post of Laureate to the United States, in order that the poet Sloper should be elected thereto. His verses had failed to soften the hearts of his native town so far as to induce them to send him as their representative to Congress, but this want of appreciation, this deadness of heart—said General Stout, warming to his subject—would, no doubt, disappear when Sloper's Sonnets received the stamp of official recognition. As to the general himself, he received thrusts on all sides, as to his campaigns in stage-land, his conquests in the green-room, his capitulations under (scenic) canvas, his ready response to the cry from oppressed damsels of "Stout to the rescue!"
The Ballingers were both much amused. Mordaunt, between Mrs. Caldwell and Mrs. Flynn, had two foot-notes, as it were, to the text of all this personal raillery. Mrs. Flynn was the more ample and unrestrained expositor of the two, Mrs. Caldwell not going beyond a hint, sometimes, where the younger and livelier lady became exhaustive. Grace had Pierce Caldwell beside her. He fully entered into the fun, and told her enough to make her understand the point of each attack, the dexterity of each defence, the imperturbable good temper with which all who mingled in the fray bore the several blows.
"People say you Americans are thin-skinned," she said. "Perhaps there is one side of you—that side which you turn to us—which has a sensitive skin; but the other side, that which is presented to yourselves, must be covered with a perfect hide! Englishmen could not stand these blows below the belt, they would turn very nasty. I saw a clever young man once in a country-house retire to bed because—we were playing at 'Twenty-one Questions'—he was so offended at an impudent bit of chaff. We had thought of the Duke of Wellington's monument in St. Paul's, and when he could not guess it, and had to be told, he declared indignantly he had never heard of it. 'Perhaps you never heard of the Duke of Wellington,' said a pert prig, whereupon the discomfited guesser went straight off to bed. Now, I see that no American could possibly be so silly. You have your tempers so admirably in hand."
"Well, I don't know about that," said Pierce, dubiously. "It all depends on whether we think a man means mischief or not. These fellows here, you see, are all good friends. They enjoy sharpening their wits on each other."
"So it seems," said Grace, laughing.
Dr. Parr, on her other side, had been watching his opportunity to fire sly shots obliquely across the table at Chudleigh, and had not heard the foregoing. He now turned round and addressed the young Englishwoman with the unmistakable air that says, "Enough of fooling. Let us be serious," though there was still a sub-cutaneous twitch about his mouth.
"What do you think of us, Miss Ballinger? I am afraid you will go back and say we are an unlicensed set of victuallers, making a terrible row, without any manners, any polish, eh?"
"I am so glad you put it that way, instead of asking me what I think of America, which is so difficult to answer, and which I am asked, upon an average, twelve times every day. It isn't at all difficult to answer you. I should like to dine with such unlicensed victuallers every day of my life."