They are bringing her
for the first time to-morrow, and it struck me that if I have YOU
there already when they arrive--you'll come in your national costume
by the way?--it will be a considerable set-off. Since his daughter was
presented to the duchess at the opening of a bazaar, there has been no
holding Pash; why he was ever elected Reader of the Books, I don't
know. Er--we have had scoffers sometimes, but I trust I may rely upon
you not to laugh at anything you may not happen to agree with?"
With conscientious dignity I replied that I had only really laughed
seven times in my life, and therefore the entertainment was one which
I was not likely to embark upon hastily or with inadequate cause. He
immediately expressed a seemly regret that the detail had been spoken,
and again assuring him that at the stated hour I would present myself
at the house bearing the symbol engraved upon the card, we definitely
parted.
That, as a matter of fact, I did not so present myself at the exact
hour, chiefly concerns the uncouth and arbitrary-minded charioteer who
controlled the movements of the vehicle to which the one whom I was
seeking had explicitly referred; for at an angle in the road he
suffered the horses to draw us aside into a path which did not
correspond to the engraved signs upon the card, nor by any word of
persuasion could he be prevailed upon to return.
Thus, without any possible reproach upon the manner in which I was
conducting the enterprise, it came about that by the time I reached
the spot indicated, all those persons who had been spoken of as
constituting a chosen band were assembled, and with them the
barbarian princess.
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