Lippincotts Magazine, October 1873 | Page 8

which are already disposed of. In
twenty years the sultan will become a monk, to get rid of the chief
sultana, who has pestered his life out with her notions of woman's
rights, and who wore the Bloomer costume before the Crimean war. As
for the question about China, it is better to let sleeping dogs lie: it has
been a great mistake to arouse China, for it is a dog that drags after it
three hundred millions of pups. Only see the effect already in Lima and
San Francisco! Before a century has elapsed all Asia, with Alaska and
the Pacific part of America, to say nothing of that petty extremity you
persist in calling Europe, will be in the power of China. Your little girls,
professor, will be more liable to lose their feet than their arms, for it is
a hundred chances to one but your great-grand-nieces grow up
Chinawomen."
"Astonishing!" murmured the professor of geography.
"Admirable!" cried the doctor.
I had hitherto said nothing, though I was capitally entertained. At
length I ventured to take up my own parable, and, addressing the
pretended disciple of the Brahmans, I asked, "Can you enlighten us, sir,
on the true reason of the revolt of the slave States in America?"
The cosmopolitan, by this time standing, turned to me with a courteous
motion of acquiescence; and, after having given me to understand by an
agreeable smile that he did not confound me with his pair of victims, he
said pompously, "The true cause was that each Northern freeholder
demanded the use of two planters, now mostly octoroons, for
body-servants."
"You don't say so?" said the school-teacher, profoundly impressed.
The Scotchman looked like him who digesteth a pill. I decided quickly
on my own rôle, and briskly joined the conversation. Fishing up my
botany-box and extracting the little flower, "Nothing is more likely

when you know the country," I observed. "I have lived in Florida,
gentlemen, where I undertook, as Comparative Geographer and as
amateur botanist" (I looked searchingly at the professor, who had called
me an herb-doctor), "to fix the location of Ponce de Leon's fountain and
observe the medicinal plants to which it owes its virtue. America, I
must explain to you, is a country where proportions are greatly changed.
The pineapple tree there grows so very tall that it is impossible from
the ground to reach the fruit. This little flower now in my hand
becomes in that climate a towering and sturdy plant, the tobacco plant.
The wild justice of those lawless savannahs uses it as a gibbet for the
execution of criminals, whence the term 'Lynchburg tobacco.' You
cannot readily imagine the scale on which life expands. It was formerly
not necessary to be a great man there to have a hundred slaves. For my
part, sixty domestics sufficed me" (I regarded sternly the
homoeopathist, who had taken me for a waiter): "it was but a scant
allowance, since my pipe alone took the whole time of four."
"Oh," said the Scotchman, "allow me to doubt. I understand the
distribution of blood among the planters, because I am a homoeopathist;
but what could your pipe gain by being diluted among four men?"
"The first filled it, the second lighted it, the third handed it and the
fourth smoked it. I hate tobacco."
The witticism appeared generally agreeable, and I laughed with the rest.
The cheerful philosopher in the gray coat passed out: as he left the
room, followed subserviently by his interlocutors, he bowed very
pleasantly to me and shook hands with my guardian the engineer.
"You know him?" I said to the latter.
"Just as well as you," he replied: "is it possible you don't recognize him?
It is Fortnoye."
"What! Fortnoye--the Ancient of the wine-cellar at Épernay?"
"Certainly."
"In truth it is the same jolly voice. Then his white beard was a
disguise?"
"What would you have?"
"I am glad he is the same: I began to think the mystifiers here were as
dangerous as those of the champagne country. At any rate, he is a
bright fellow."
"He is not always bright. A man with so good a heart as his must be

saddened sometimes, at least with others' woes, and he does not always
escape woes of his own."
This sentiment affected me, and irritated me a little besides, for I felt
that it was in my own vein, and that it was I who had a right to the
observation. I immediately quoted an extract from an Icelandic Saga to
the effect that dead bees give a stinging quality to the very metheglin of
the gods. We exchanged these remarks in crossing the vestibule of the
hotel: a carriage was standing there for my friend.
"I am sorry to leave you. I