As I knew my aunt, I felt sure she would appreciate the delicate compliment implied by the proximity of the postal notice to her name.
IS CHIVALRY DEAD?
This indeed proved the case, when I visited her later in the autumn. I draw a veil over our interview; but happily my aunt is fond of a joke, and when I told her my adventures of that morning, she laughed as she had not done for years, until I flattered myself she had forgotten the queer declaration on her package.
At the end, however, she suddenly drew herself up and, raising a reproving finger, said, “Well, it wasn’t your writing! or I shouldn’t let you off so easily, Jack. But what kind of a functionary was that, now, who would dare, in your presence, to insult your aunt?”
“In my young days a lad of spirit would have called out a villain like that,—yes, or a fellow that ventured on the twentieth part of such an atrocity!”
“Jack, Jack, where’s your chivalry?”
“Calm yourself, my dear aunt,” I retorted. “Its only that you don’t catch the niceties of a translation. But you’ll pick that up soon enough if you go over with me to the Hague next year.”
“Never”, said my aunt firmly.