1876 Read Online Free PDF Page A

constantly transmitting define and govern this raw world: buy cotton, sell gold, make money. Well, I am hardly one to be condescending. Why else am I here?
    John assured us that above Madison Square, as far north as Fifty-second Street, European-style mansions are going up. “While way up at Fifty-seventh Street, Mrs. Mary Mason Jones has built herself a French villa. Most extraordinary sight! Just sitting there all by itself in the wilderness with nothing around it except a few saloons and squatters’ huts, and the goats.”
    Despite stern laws the goats are everywhere; they even invade the elegant premises of Madison Square. Emma was enthralled by the sight of a policeman attacking a half dozen dingy goats at the north end of the square, where they had taken up residence in front of a building in the process of renovation: the newest restaurant of the Delmonico family, soon to open.
    We were met just outside the front door by a director of the hotel, a cousin of the late Mr. Paran Stevens, whose widow is known for her Sunday-night evenings, to which everyone goes save the most staid of the gentry like Mrs. Mary Mason Jones. I don’t know why, but I do enjoy writing that name.
    The opiate is beginning to take effect. I yawn. Am drowsy. Note that the heart now beats more and more slowly whilst the little drum in my head has slowed its thudding.
    The Stevenses’ cousin was most flattering: “A great honour, sir. To receive you and the beautiful Princess.”
    With much ceremony, we were led into the hotel lobby, a vast room crowded with tall palms and fat green rubber plants—a jungle contained by marble walls and red damask hangings and filled with the infernal smell of cigar smoke, of burning anthracite, of the heavy perfumes worn by the many ladies (not all, I should think, properly attended) who made their promenade either in pairs together or on the arm of a gentleman—recently met? The fact that I can no longer tell a prostitute from a fine lady is the first sign that I have been away for a very long time. As a boy, I always knew .
    I registered us at the desk; pleasantly aware that we were the center of much attention. Obviously, I am better known than the overcoats have led me to believe. Also, the fact that I am accompanied by a bonafide princess is stimulating. Americans care desperately for titles, for any sign of distinction. In fact, since the War Between the States, I have not met a single American of a certain age who does not insist upon being addressed as Colonel or Commodore. Invariably I promote them; address them as General, as Admiral; they preen and do not correct me.
    The Stevenses’ cousin ... but I forget: he, too, is titled. The Colonel said that he would like personally to escort us to our suite on the sixth floor. “We shall take,” he said, “the perpendicular railway.”
    I assumed that this was some sort of nonsense phrase and thought nothing of it as we made our regal progress across the central lobby. Many of the gentlemen bowed respectfully to the director; he is a handsome man, heavily bearded as almost everyone is nowadays except me. I continue to wear only side whiskers despite the fact that having exchanged the blond silken hair of youth for the white wiry bristle of old age, I resemble uncannily the late President Van Buren.
    Halfway across the lobby, a puffy bewhiskered man of fifty, elaborately got up, with perfumed (and dyed?) whiskers, bowed low to Emma and me.
    “ Princesse , allow me to introduce myself. We met at the christening of the prince imp é rial .”
    The voice was Southern with a most peculiar overtone of British; the French was frightful but confident.
    Emma was gracious; I, too. He told us his name; neither listened to it. Then he was gone. The Colonel, who had been talking to a huge man with a diamond stickpin, turned; his eyebrows arched at the retreating figure. “You know him?”
    Emma chose to be mischievous. “Paris. The christening of the prince imp