La Fleur's PREVENANCY (For There Was A Passport In His Very Looks) Soon Set Every Servant In The Kitchen At

Ease with him; and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of prudery in showing them, La

Fleur, in less than five minutes, had pulled out his fife, and leading off the dance himself with the first note, set the fille de chambre, the maitre d'hotel, the cook, the scullion, and all the house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: I suppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.

Madame de L-, in passing from her brother's apartments to her own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her fille de chambre to ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman's servant, who had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.

As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded himself in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de L-, on the part of his master, - added a long apocrypha of inquiries after Madame de L-'s health, - told her, that Monsieur his master was au desespoire for her re-establishment from the fatigues of her journey, - and, to close all, that Monsieur had received the letter which Madame had done him the honour - And he has done me the honour, said Madame de L-, interrupting La Fleur, to send a billet in return.

Madame de L- had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations; - he trembled for my honour, - and possibly might not altogether be unconcerned for his own, as a man capable of being attached to a master who could be wanting en egards vis a vis d'une femme! so that when Madame de L- asked La Fleur if he had brought a letter, - O qu'oui, said La Fleur: so laying down his hat upon the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right side pocket with his left hand, he began to search for the letter with his right; - then contrariwise. - Diable! then sought every pocket - pocket by pocket, round, not forgetting his fob: - Peste! - then La Fleur emptied them upon the floor, - pulled out a dirty cravat, - a handkerchief, - a comb, - a whip lash, - a nightcap, - then gave a peep into his hat, - Quelle etourderie! He had left the letter upon the table in the auberge; - he would run for it, and be back with it in three minutes.

I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an account of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it was: and only added that if Monsieur had forgot (par hazard) to answer Madame's letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover the faux pas; - and if not, that things were only as they were.

Now I was not altogether sure of my etiquette, whether I ought to have wrote or no; - but if I had, - a devil himself could not have been angry:

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 27 of 79
Words from 13696 to 14219 of 40886