Its echoes followed her when she crossed the Atlantic, till they were
lost in the louder, deeper, more blatant paean that rose for her from
the shores beyond. All the stops of that "mighty organ, many-piped,"
the New York press, were pulled out simultaneously, as far as they
could be pulled, in Zuleika's honour. She delighted in the din. She
read every line that was printed about her, tasting her triumph as she
had never tasted it before. And how she revelled in the Brobdingnagian
drawings of her, which, printed in nineteen colours, towered between
the columns or sprawled across them! There she was, measuring herself
back to back with the Statue of Liberty; scudding through the
firmament on a comet, whilst a crowd of tiny men in evening-dress
stared up at her from the terrestrial globe; peering through a
microscope held by Cupid over a diminutive Uncle Sam; teaching the
American Eagle to stand on its head; and doing a hundred-and-one other
things--whatever suggested itself to the fancy of native art. And
through all this iridescent maze of symbolism were scattered many
little slabs of realism. At home, on the street, Zuleika was the
smiling target of all snap-shooters, and all the snap-shots were
snapped up by the press and reproduced with annotations: Zuleika
Dobson walking on Broadway in the sables gifted her by Grand Duke
Salamander--she says "You can bounce blizzards in them"; Zuleika
Dobson yawning over a love-letter from millionaire Edelweiss;
relishing a cup of clam-broth--she says "They don't use clams out
there"; ordering her maid to fix her a warm bath; finding a split in
the gloves she has just drawn on before starting for the musicale
given in her honour by Mrs. Suetonius X. Meistersinger, the most
exclusive woman in New York; chatting at the telephone to Miss Camille
Van Spook, the best-born girl in New York; laughing over the
recollection of a compliment made her by George Abimelech Post, the
best-groomed man in New York; meditating a new trick; admonishing a