Part 15 (1/2)

”You jest,” he said.

The reply was a majestic growl.

”I _never_ jest!” The speaker half sat down, then straightened up again.

”Ah, the Marquis of Caso Calvo!--I must bow to him, though an honest man's bow is more than he deserves.”

”More than he deserves?” was Frowenfeld's query.

”More than he deserves!” was the response.

”What has he done? I have never heard--”

The denunciator turned upon Frowenfeld his most royal frown, and retorted with a question which still grows wild in Louisiana:

”What”--he seemed to shake his mane--”what has he _not_ done, sir?” and then he withdrew his frown slowly, as if to add, ”You'll be careful next time how you cast doubt upon a public official's guilt.”

The marquis's cavalcade came briskly jingling by. Frowenfeld saw within the carriage two men, one in citizen's dress, the other in a brilliant uniform. The latter leaned forward, and, with a cordiality which struck the young spectator as delightful, bowed. The immigrant glanced at Citizen Fusilier, expecting to see the greeting returned with great haughtiness; instead of which that person uncovered his leonine head, and, with a solemn sweep of his c.o.c.ked hat, bowed half his length. Nay, he more than bowed, he bowed down--so that the action hurt Frowenfeld from head to foot.

”What large gentlemen was that sitting on the other side?” asked the young man, as his companion sat down with the air of having finished an oration.

”No gentleman at all!” thundered the citizen. ”That fellow” (beetling frown), ”that _fellow_ is Edward Livingston.”

”The great lawyer?”

”The great villain!”

Frowenfeld himself frowned.

The old man laid a hand upon his junior's shoulder and growled benignantly:

”My young friend, your displeasure delights me!”

The patience with which Frowenfeld was bearing all this forced a chuckle and shake of the head from the _marchande_.

Citizen Fusilier went on speaking in a manner that might be construed either as address or soliloquy, gesticulating much and occasionally letting out a fervent word that made pa.s.sers look around and Joseph inwardly wince. With eyes closed and hands folded on the top of the knotted staff which he carried but never used, he delivered an apostrophe to the ”spotless soul of youth,” enticed by the ”spirit of adventure” to ”launch away upon the unploughed sea of the future!” He lifted one hand and smote the back of the other solemnly, once, twice, and again, nodding his head faintly several times without opening his eyes, as who should say, ”Very impressive; go on,” and so resumed; spoke of this spotless soul of youth searching under unknown lat.i.tudes for the ”sunken treasures of experience”; indulged, as the reporters of our day would say, in ”many beautiful nights of rhetoric,” and finally depicted the loathing with which the spotless soul of youth ”recoils!”--suiting the action to the word so emphatically as to make a pretty little boy who stood gaping at him start back--”on encountering in the holy chambers of public office the vultures hatched in the nests of ambition and avarice!”

Three or four persons lingered carelessly near by with ears wide open.

Frowenfeld felt that he must bring this to an end, and, like any young person who has learned neither deceit nor disrespect to seniors, he attempted to reason it down.

”You do not think many of our public men are dishonest!”

”Sir!” replied the rhetorician, with a patronizing smile, ”h-you must be thinking of France!”

”No, sir; of Louisiana.”

”Louisiana! Dishonest? All, sir, all. They are all as corrupt as Olympus, sir!”

”Well,” said Frowenfeld, with more feeling than was called for, ”there is one who, I feel sure, is pure. I know it by his face!”