elderly maiden ladies were unmistakably of central Massachusetts, and
were obviously of a book-club culture that had left no leaf unturned;
some Triestines gave themselves away by their Venetian accent; but a
large group at a farther table were unassignable in the strange language
which they clattered loudly together, with bursts of laughter. They were
a family party of old and young, they were having a good time, with a
freedom which she called baronial; the ladies wore white satin, or black
lace, but the men were in sack-coats; she chose to attribute them, for no
reason but their outlandishness, to Transylvania. March pretended to
prefer a table full of Germans, who were unmistakably bourgeois, and yet
of intellectual effect. He chose as his favorite a middle-aged man of
learned aspect, and they both decided to think of him as the Herr
Professor, but they did not imagine how perfectly the title fitted him
till he drew a long comb from his waistcoat pocket and combed his hair
and beard with it above the table.

The wine wrought with the Transylvanians, and they all jargoned together
at once, and laughed at the jokes passing among them. One old gentleman
had a peculiar fascination from the infantile innocence of his gums when
he threw his head back to laugh, and showed an upper jaw toothless except
for two incisors, standing guard over the chasm between. Suddenly he
choked, coughed to relieve himself, hawked, held his napkin up before
him, and--

"Noblesse oblige," said March, with the tone of irony which he reserved
for his wife's preoccupations with aristocracies of all sorts. "I think I
prefer my Hair Professor, bourgeois, as he is."

The ladies attributively of central Massachusetts had risen from their
table, and were making for the door without having paid for their supper.