"Abominable!" the Doctor.
"Infamous!" the Senator.
"By jingo! I've a great mind to go home. If I've pot to be plundered, I'd a durned sight rather have my money go to support our own great and glorious institutions."
There is no doubt that the unfortunate man would have had to pay up if it bad not been for the energetic action of Buttons.
He summoned the hotel-keeper before him, and closing the door, asked his friends to sit down.
Then Buttons, standing up, began to repeat to the hotel-keeper, smilingly, but with extraordinary volubility, Daniel Webster's oration against Hayne. The polite Frenchman would not interrupt him, but listened with a bland though somewhat dubious smile.
The Dodge Club did infinite credit to themselves by listening without a smile to the words of their leader.
Buttons then went through the proposition about the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, and appended the words of a few negro songs.
Here the worthy landlord interrupted him, begging his pardon, and telling him that he did not understand English very well, and could his Excellency speak French?
His Excellency, with equal politeness, regretted his want of complete familiarity with French. He was forced when he felt deeply on any subject to express himself in English.