第180章

Story took no trouble to undeceive his interlocutor, but remarked that, so far as he knew, they were all well, and ended the interview with commonplaces.

These two Dromios evidently enjoyed meeting, and nothing could be more amusing than their accounts of various instances in which each had been mistaken for the other. Each had a rich vein of humor, and both presented the details of these occurrences with especial zest.

Another American, of foreign birth, was not quite so charming. He was a man of value in his profession; but his desire for promotion outran his discretion. Having served as juror at the Vienna Exposition, he had now been appointed to a similar place in Paris; and after one of my dinners he came up to a group in which there were two or three members of the French cabinet, and said:

``Mr. Vite, I vish you vould joost dell dese zhentlemen vat I am doing vor Vrance. I vas on de dasting gommittee for vines und peers at Vien, and it 'most killed me; and now I am here doing de same duty, and my stomach has nearly gone pack on me. Tell dese zhentlemen dat de French Government zurely ought to gonfer ubon me de Legion of Honor.'' This was spoken with the utmost seriousness, and was embarrassing, since, of all subjects, that which a French minister least wishes to discuss publicly is the conferring of the red ribbon.

Embarrassing also was the jubilation of some of our American exhibitors at our celebration of the Fourth of July in the Bois de Boulogne. Doubtless they were excellent citizens, but never was there a better exemplification of Dr. Arnold's saying that ``a traveller is a self-constituted outlaw.'' A generous buffet had been provided, after the French fashion, with a sufficiency of viands and whatever wine was needed. To my amazement, these men, who at home were most of them, probably, steady-going ``temperance men,'' were so overcome with the idea that champagne was to be served ad libitum, that the whole thing came near degenerating into an orgy. AEuropean of the same rank, accustomed to drinking wine moderately with his dinner, would have simply taken a glass or two and thought no more of it; but these gentlemen seemed to see in it the occasion of their lives. Bottles were seized and emptied, glass after glass, down the throats of my impulsive fellow-citizens: in many cases a bottle and more to a man. Then came the worst of it.

It had been arranged that speeches should be made under a neighboring tent by leading members of the French cabinet who had accepted invitations to address us. But when they proceeded to do this difficulties arose. A number of our compatriots, unduly exhilarated, and understanding little that was said, first applauded on general principles, but at the wrong places, and finally broke out into apostrophes such as ``Speak English, old boy!''

``Talk Yankee fashion!'' ``Remember the glorious Fourth!'' ``Give it to the British!'' ``Make the eagle scream!'' and the like. The result was that we were obliged to make most earnest appeals to these gentlemen, begging them not to disgrace our country; and, finally, the proceedings were cut short.

Nor was this the end. As I came down the Champs lyses afterward, I met several groups of these patriots, who showed by their walk and conversation that they were decidedly the worse for their celebration of the day; and the whole thing led me to reflect seriously on the drink problem, and to ask whether our American solution of it is the best. I have been present at many large festive assemblages, in various parts of Europe, where wine was offered freely as a matter of course; but never have I seen anything to approach this performance of my countrymen. I have been one of four thousand people at the Htel de Ville in Paris on the occasion of a great ball, at other entertainments almost as large in other Continental countries, and at dinner parties innumerable in every European country; but never, save in one instance, were the festivities disturbed by any man on account of drink.

The most eminent of American temperance advocates during my young manhood, Mr. Delavan, insisted that he found Italy, where all people, men, women, and children, drink wine with their meals, if they can get it, the most temperate country he had ever seen; and, having made more than twelve different sojourns in Italy, I can confirm that opinion.

So, too, again and again, when traveling in the old days on the top of a diligence through village after village in France, where the people were commemorating the patron saint of their district, I have passed through crowds of men, women, and children seated by the roadside drinking wine, cider, and beer, and, so far as one could see, there was no drunkenness; certainly none of the squalid, brutal, swinish sort. It may indeed be said that, in spite of light stimulants, drunkenness has of late years increased in France, especially among artisans and day laborers. If this be so, it comes to strengthen my view. For the main reason will doubtless be found in the increased prices of light wines, due to vine diseases and the like, which have driven the poorer classes to seek far more noxious beverages.

So, too, in Germany. Like every resident in that country, I have seen great crowds drinking much beer, and, though I greatly dislike that sort of guzzling, I never saw anything of the beastly, crazy, drunken exhibitions which are so common on Independence Day and county-fair day in many American towns where total abstinence is loudly preached and ostensibly practised. Least of all do I admire the beer-swilling propensities of the German students, and still I must confess that I have never seen anything so wild, wicked, outrageous, and destructive to soul and body as the drinking of distilled liquors at bars which, in my student days, I saw among American students.