"Hold on a minute," said Harry, as they were about to take the stage, after a very fair three-o'clock dinner at Constantinople (the Occidental, not the Oriental city of that name); "there goes an acquaintance of ours whom you must know. He has arrived by the Westfield train, doubtless."
Away sped Benson after the acquaintance, arm-in-arm with whom he shortly returned, and, with all the exultation of an American who has brought two lions into the same cage, introduced M. le Vicomte Vincent Le Roi to the honorable Edward Ashburner.
Ashburner was rather puzzled at Le Roi, whose personal appearance did not in any way answer, either to his originally conceived idea of a Frenchman, or to the live specimens he had thus far met with. The Vicomte looked more like an Englishman, or perhaps like the very best kind of Irishman. He was a middle-sized man, of thirty or thereabout, with brown hair and a florid complexion; and very quietly dressed, his clothes being neither obtrusively new nor cut with any ultra-artistic pretension. Except his wearing a moustache and (of course) not speaking English, there was nothing continental about his outward man, or the first impression he gave of himself. Fortunately, he was also bound for the Springs, so that Ashburner would have abundant opportunity to study his character, if so disposed.
The stage in which our tourists were to embark was not unlike a French diligence, except that it had but one compartment instead of three; in which compartment there were three seats, and on each seat more or less room for three persons, and two more could sit with the driver. All the baggage was carried on the top. The springs were made like coach-springs, or C-springs, as they are always called in America (just as in England a pilot-coat is called a P-jacket), only they were upright and perpendicular to the axletree instead of curving; and the leathern belts connected with them, on which the carriage swung, were of the thickest and toughest description. As the party, with the addition of Le Roi, amounted to eight, Benson managed, by a little extra expenditure of tin and trouble, to secure the whole of one vehicle, and for the still greater accommodation of the ladies and child, the gentlemen were to sit on the box two at a time by turns. Benson's first object was to get hold of the reins, for which end he began immediately to talk around the driver about things in general. From the price of horses they diverged to the prospects of various kinds of business, and thence slap into the politics of the country. The driver was a stubborn Locofoco, and Benson did not disdain to enter into an elaborate argument with him. Ashburner, who then occupied the other box-seat, was astonished at the man's statistical knowledge, the variety of information he possessed upon local topics, and his accurate acquaintance with the government and institutions of his country. It occurred to him to prompt Benson, through the convenient medium of French, to sound him about England and European politics. This Harry did, not immediately, lest he might suspect the purport of their conversational interlude, but by a dexterous approach to the point after sufficient preliminary; and it then appeared that he had lumped "the despotic powers of the old world" in a heap together, and supposed the Queen of England to be on a par with the Czar of Russia as regarded her personal authority and privileges. However, when Benson set him right as to the difference between a limited and an absolute monarchy, he took the information in very good part, listened to it attentively, and evidently made a mental note of it for future reference.
The four-horse team was a good strong one, but the stage with its load heavy enough, and the roads, after the recent storm, still heavier, besides being a succession of hills. The best they could do was to make six miles an hour, and they would not have made three but for a method of travelling down-hill, entirely foreign to European ideas on the subject. When they arrived at the summit there was no talk of putting on the drag, nor any drag to put on, but away the horses went, first at a rapid trot, and soon at full gallop; by which means the equipage acquired sufficient momentum to carry it part of the way up the next hill before the animals relapsed into the slow walk which the steepness of the ascent imposed upon them. Indeed this part of the route would have been a very tedious one (for the country about was almost entirely devoid of interest), had it not been for Le Roi, who came out in great force. He laughed at every thing and with every body; told stories, and good ones, continuously, and only ceased telling stories to break forth into song. In fine, he amused the ladies so much, that when he took his turn on the box they missed him immediately, and sent Benson outside again on the first opportunity; whereat the Vicomte, being very much flattered, waxed livelier and merrier than ever, and kept up a constant fire of jest and ditty. As to Ashburner, who had a great liking for fresh air, and an equal horror of a small child in a stage-coach, he remained outside the whole time; for which the fair passengers set him down as an insensible youth, who did not know how to appreciate good company; until the evening becoming somewhat chilly by comparison with the very hot day they had undergone, both he and Harry took refuge in the interior, and a very jolly party they all made.
While they were outside together, Benson had been giving Ashburner some details about Le Roi—in fact, a succinct biography of him; for be it noted, that every New-Yorker is able to produce off-hand a minute history of every person, native or foreign, at all known in society: for which ability he is indebted partly to the inquisitive habits of the people, partly to their communicative disposition, partly to their remarkable memory of small particulars, and partly to a fine imagination and power of invention, which must be experienced to be fully appreciated. Benson, we say, had been, telling his friend the story of his other friend or acquaintance; how he was of good family and no fortune; how he had written three novels and three thousand or more feuilletons; how he had travelled into some out-of-the-way part of Poland, where no one had ever been before or since, and about which he was, therefore, at liberty to say what he pleased; how, besides his literary capabilities, such as they were, he played, and sang, and danced, and sketched—all very well for an amateur; how he was altogether a very agreeable and entertaining man, and, as such, was supposed to have been sent out by a sort of mutual-benefit subscription-club, which existed at Paris for the purpose of marrying its members to heiresses in different countries. Ashburner had once heard rumors of such a club in Germany, but was never able to obtain any authentic details concerning it, or to determine whether it was any thing more than a traveller's traditionary legend. Even Benson was at fault here, and, indeed, he seemed rather to tell the club part of the story as a good joke, than to believe it seriously himself.
As they approached the termination of their journey, their talk naturally turned more and more on the Springs. The Vicomte was in possession of the latest advices thence; the arrivals and expected arrivals, and the price-current of stock: that is, of marriageable young gentlemen, and all other matters of gossip; how the whole family of the Robinsons was there in full force, with an unlimited amount of Parisian millinery; how Gerard Ludlow was driving four-in-hand, and Lowenberg had given his wife no end of jewelry; how Mrs. Harrison, who ought not to have been (not being of our set), nevertheless was the great lioness of the season; how Miss Thompson, the belle expectant, had renounced the Springs altogether, and shut herself up at home somewhere among the mountains—all for unrequited love of Hamilton White, as was charitably reported; last, but not least, how Tom Edwards had invented six new figures for the German cotillon. Ashburner did not at first altogether understand the introduction of this personage into such good company, supposing from his familiar abbreviation and Terpsichorean attributes that he must be the fashionable dancing-master of Oldport, or perhaps of New-York; but he was speedily given to understand that, on the contrary, Mr. Edwards was a gay bachelor of good family and large fortune, who, in addition to gambling, intriguing, and other pleasant little propensities, had an insatiable passion for the dance, and was accustomed to rotate morning, noon, and night, whenever he was not gambling, &c. as aforesaid. "And," continued Benson, "I'll lay you any bet you please, that the first thing we see on arriving at our hotel, will be Tom Edwards dancing the polka; unless, indeed, he happen to be dancing the Redowa."
"Very likely," said Mrs. Benson, "seeing we shall arrive there at ten o'clock, and this is a ball-night."
Both Harry and his wife were right; they arrived at half-past ten, just as the ball was getting into full swing. On the large portico in front of the large hotel opened a large room, with large windows down to the floor,—the dining-room of the establishment, now cleared for dancing purposes. All the idlers of Oldport, male and female, black and white, congregated at these windows and thronged the portico; and almost into the very midst of this crowd our party was shot, baggage and all. While Ashburner was looking out of a confused heap of people and luggage, he heard one of the assistant loafers say to another, "Look at Mr. Edwards!" Profiting by the information not originally intended for him, he followed the direction of the speaker's nose, and beheld a little showily-dressed man flying down the room with a large showily-dressed woman, going the poursuite of the Redowa at a terrific rate. So that, literally, the first thing he saw in Oldport was Tom Edwards dancing. But there was no opportunity to make a further study of this, "one of the most remarkable men among us," for the party had to look up their night quarters. Benson had dispatched in advance to Mr. Grabster, proprietor of the Bath Hotel at Oldport Springs, a very particular letter, stating the number of his party, the time he meant to be there, and the number of rooms he wanted, and had also sent his horses on ahead; but though the animals had arrived safe and found stable-room, there was no preparation for their master. Ashburner, at the request of the ladies, followed Benson into the office (for the Bath Hotel being, nominally at least, the first house in the place, had its bar-room and office separate), and found Harry in earnest expostulation with a magnificently-dressed individual, whom he took for Mr. Grabster himself, but who turned out to be only that high and mighty gentleman's head book-keeper. The letter had been dispatched so long beforehand that, even at the rate of American country posts, it ought to have arrived, but no one knew any thing about it. Both the young men suspected—uncharitably, perhaps, but not altogether unnaturally—that Mr. Grabster and his aids, finding a prospect of a full season, had not thought it worth their while to trouble themselves about the application, or to keep any rooms. Ashburner suggested trying another hotel, but the roads were muddy, and vehicles scarce at that time of night, so that altogether there seemed a strong probability of their being compelled to "camp out" on the portico. But it was not in Benson "to give it up so." He possessed, as we have already hinted, that faculty so alarmingly common in his country, which polite people call oratory, and vulgar ones the "gift of the gab;" and he was not the man to throw away the opportunity of turning any of his gifts to account. Warming with his subject, he poured out upon the gorgeously-attired Mr. Black such a flood of conciliatory and expostulatory eloquence, that that gentleman absolutely contrived to find some accommodation for them. The ladies, child, and servants were huddled together into one tolerably large room, in the third story. Benson had a sort of corner-cupboard in the fourth, that might, perhaps, have accommodated a mouse with a small family; and to Ashburner and Le Roi were assigned two small chambers in the fifth. As to the baggage, that was all piled up in the office, with the exception of a few indispensable articles. Supper was out of the question, there being no room to eat it in because of the dancers. The ladies did not want supper; they only regretted not being able to unpack their trunks, and dress for the ball then and there going on; their eyes lighted up at the sound of the music, and their little feet began to beat the floor incontinently. The gentlemen took a drink all round by way of substitute for something more solid. Ashburner had mounted to his dormitory—no small journey—and was sitting on his bed, wishing he had some contrivance for pulling off all his clothes at once without the trouble of removing them piece by piece, when he heard in the passage the voice of Le Roi, quantum mutatus ab illo! The Vicomte had sworn up all his own language, and was displaying a knowledge of English expletives that quite surprised his fellow-traveller. On investigation, the cause of his wrath proved to be this: a semi-civilized Irish waiter had shown him to No. 296, in accordance with Mr. Black's directions. But Mr. Black, in the multiplicity of his affairs, had forgotten that No. 296 was already tenanted, to wit, by a Western traveller, who did, indeed, intend to quit it by an early stage next morning, but had not the least idea of giving up his quarters before that time; and accordingly, as if from a presentiment that some attempt would be made to dislodge him, had, in addition to the ordinary not very strong fastenings of the door, so barricaded it with trunks and furniture, that it could have stood a considerable amount of siege. The waiter had gone off, leaving Le Roi to shift for himself. Bells were scarce in the upper stories of the Bath Hotel, nor was there any light throughout the long corridor, except the one tallow candle which his useless guide had deposited on the floor. Utterly upset at the idea of having to tramp down four pair of stairs and back again in search of accommodation, the unlucky Gaul was seeking a momentary relief in the manner above stated, when Ashburner came to the rescue. His bed happened to be rather a large one—so large, comparatively, that it was a mystery how it had ever found its way into the little room, the four walls of which seemed to have grown or been built up around it; and this bed he instantly proposed to share with Le Roi for the night. The Frenchman mercied, and couldn't think of such a thing for five minutes, edging into the room and pulling off his coat and boots all the time; then he gave a glorious exemplification of cessanta causa, for all his rage vanished in a moment, and he was the same exuberantly good-natured and profusely loquacious man that he had been all day. On he streamed in a perpetual flow of talk long after both were in bed, until Ashburner began to feel as a man might to whom some fairy had given a magical instrument, which discoursed sweet music at first, but could never be made to stop playing. And when at length the Vicomte, having lighted on the subject of women, poured out an infinity of adventures with ladies of all countries, of all which stories Vincent Le Roi was, of course, the hero, his fellow-traveller, unable to help being disgusted at his vanity and levity, turned round to the wall, and without considering whether he was acting in accordance with bienseance, fell fast asleep in the midst of one of the most thrilling narratives.
When Ashburner awoke next morning, the first thing he was conscious of was Le Roi talking. It required very little exercise of the imagination to suppose that he had been going on uninterruptedly all night. Afterwards he became aware of a considerable disturbance, evidently originating in the lower story of the house, but sufficiently audible all over it, which he put down to the account of numerous new arrivals. By the time they had completed their toilettes (which did not take very long, for the room being just under the roof, was of a heat that made it desirable for them to evacuate it as soon as possible), Benson made his appearance. He had obtained possession of his baggage, and arrayed himself in the extreme of summer costume:—a white grass-cloth coat, about the consistency of blotting-paper, so transparent that the lilac pattern of his check shirt was distinctly visible through the arms of it; white duck vest, white drilled trousers, long-napped white hat, a speckled cravat to match his shirt, and highly varnished shoes, with red and white striped silk stockings,—altogether very fresh and innocent-looking. He came to show them the principal spring, which was not far from the hotel—just a pleasant walk before breakfast, though it was not likely they would meet many people so early, on account of last night's ball.