The newspaper writers of the day, commenting upon this, said that the minister from Venezuela—the most insignificant government represented, was most bedizened with gold lace, stars, and trumpery of every sort. These letters, prepared for home perusal, were re-published in the Paris papers, and of course, met the eyes of all the parties alluded to!
S—— told one of my friends that among the annoyances to which the whole affair subjected him, was that of being subsequently constantly thrown in contact with the various personages with whose names his own had been, without his previous knowledge, unceremoniously, associated.
No doubt, however, his skillful diplomacy carried him as triumphantly through this difficulty as through others of vital importance.
Dining with this polished young diplomate, at the Tremont in Boston, where we met soon after his return home, the conversation turned upon the personal appearance of Louis Napoleon, and from his wire-drawn moustaches diverged to the subject of beards in general.
"The truth is, Col. Lunettes," said Mr. S——, in French,—which by the way, he both speaks and writes, as he does his native tongue, with great purity and propriety, and this to our shame be it said, is far enough from being generally the case with our various officials abroad, "the truth is, Col. Lunettes, (I detected a just perceptible glance at my furrowed cheek, which was, however, smooth-shaven as his own) that a clean face is getting to be the distinctive mark of a gentleman!"
"My dear Miss ——," said I to a charming woman, whose cordial smile of recognition drew me within the magic circle of her influence, at a ball, where I had been for some little time a 'quiet looker-on,' "will you pardon the temerity of an old friend in inquiring what induced your chilling reception of the handsome stranger whom I saw presented to you with such empressement by our host a little while ago? If you could have seen the admiration with which he long regarded you at a distance, 'his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,'—as he leaned against the—the corner of the big fiddle, there, while the music was at supper!—could you have seen this, as others saw it, and then the look of deep desperation with which he swallowed a bottle of champagne at a standing, when he fled from your frowns to the supper-room!—Really, Miss ——, I have seldom had my sympathies so excited for a stranger"—
By this time her ringing laugh stirred the blood into quicker pulsations through my time-steeled heart; "Oh, Colonel, Colonel!" cried she, in tones, mirth-engendering as the silvery call of Dian, goddess of the dewy morn, (is that poetry, I wonder?) "I see you are just as delightfully quizzical as during our Alpine journey together. I have never quite forgiven the Fates for robbing our party of so inimitable a compagnon de voyage, and me of"—"so devout an admirer!" I chimed in: "and me of so devout an admirer," proceeded the lady, with a quick spirit-flash in her deep violet eyes, "and when we were just becoming so well acquainted, too! It was too provoking! Do you remember the amusement we had from recalling the various characteristic exclamations of the different members of our party, when the Italian plains burst upon our view, out-spread before us in the morning sunlight, after that horrid night in the shepherd's hut?"
"If I recollect, it was your avowed slave, 'gentleman John' as you called him, who shouted, 'O, ye Gods and little fishes!—nothing bad about that, by thunder?' That fellow carried the ladies, as he did everything else, by storm"—
"No, no, Colonel, not all the ladies; but I was going to tell you about this 'mysterious stranger,' or 'romantic stranger'—what sobriquet did you give him? Suppose we go nearer the door, it is so warm here," and she twined an arm that threw Powers into a rapture,[2] confidingly around the support proffered her by an old soldier, and we gradually escaped from the crowd (any one of the men would willingly have stillettoed me, I dare say!) into a cool corner of the hall.