"Wednesday Morn."
A half-revived remembrance of a face once familiar, had haunted me at the dinner table the day before, whenever I chanced to catch the eye of the victimized youth I have alluded to. I was, therefore, not unprepared to find him identical with the author of this note.
A certain constraint was evinced by his manner, when the first complimentary phrases were over. At length his embarrassment found expression.
"I am not sure, Colonel Lunettes," said he, "that I should have ventured to intrude upon you this morning—much as I desired to make the acquaintance of a gentlemen of whom I have so frequently heard my father speak—had I not wished to make an apology, or at least an explanation"——
He hesitated, and the mottled color of the day before mantled over his ingenuous face. I hastened to say something polite.
"You are very good, sir—really—scandalously as that young fellow behaved—he is not without redeeming qualities. My acquaintance with him is slight, and entirely accidental. One of our successful Western speculators, and a very good-hearted fellow—but sadly in need of polish."
"So I perceived," returned I, gravely, "nor is that all. One can pardon ignorance much more readily than impudence."
"Very true, sir. I only hope that I was not so unfortunate as to incur your displeasure. I—permit me to express the hope that the ladies of your party did not regard me as in the most remote way implicated in an intention to annoy them," and his voice actually trembled with manly earnestness.
"By no means, my dear young friend; by no means. I assure you, on the contrary, that you had our sympathy in your distress—comic as it was."
The intense ludicrousness of the affair now seemed, for the first time, to take full possession of the perceptive faculties of my new acquaintance.