A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 73 



But the absurdity and ignorance of the young 

 puppy rendered it impossible to be annoyed, much less 

 seriously angry with him ; and when Matuschevitz 

 whispered in his ear that it was getting to be time to 

 walk home and dress for dinner, the Virginian left the 

 company certainly with modified dislikes or disinclina- 

 tions even toward the very snobdom of the English aris- 

 tocracy, and with a very cordial feeling of respect and 

 liking for the simple mannered, frank-spoken, open, 

 cheerful, manly, and unpresuming gentlemen who, he 

 was not slow to perceive, formed at least nine out of 

 ten out of the collectaneum of sportsmen, whether en- 

 nobled or no, who had offered him so earnestly and 

 unaffectedly the right hand of good fellowship, on this 

 his first introduction, as an unknown foreigner, to one 

 of their most intensely national and thoroughly ex- 

 clusive cliques. 



Nor could he refrain from expressing something of 

 this strain of feeling to his Russian friend, as they 

 sauntered slowly homeward. "Our people," he said, 

 " could not believe at home, that these men are the 

 very flower of that English aristocracy of which they 

 have heard so much, and whom they believe to be so 

 haughty, so arrogant, so ignorant, and so exclusive. 

 I assure you, count, there is much more of that sort of 

 social impertinence and cliqueism, much more of arro- 

 gance and exclusiveness among the soi-disantes fashion- 

 able sets of our American mercantile cities, than among 

 these men, who are supposed to hold themselves the 

 very creme de la or erne de la terrey 



"And who do really so hold themselves, monclier^'^ 

 replied the minister. " But, though very generally 

 believed, there is no greater error than the opinion 

 that most or many Englishmen of good standing at 

 home are exclusive or arrogant. They associate, when 

 at home, with their own caste, because there is no 

 other caste with which they can agreeably or consist- 



