Dipwell! You should have heard old John Thresher and Mark Sweetwinter
and the others grumbling at the interference of "French frogs;" with
their beef, though Alphonse vowed he only ordered the ox to be turned
faster, and he dressed their potatoes in six different ways. I doubt if
Dipwell has composed itself yet. You know I sat for president in their
tent while the beef went its first round; and Alphonse was in an awful
hurry to drag me into what he called the royal tent. By the way, you
should have hauled the standard down at sunset.'

'Not when the son had not come down among us,' said my father, smiling.

'Well, I forgot to tell you about Alphonse. By the way, we'll have him
in our service. There was he plucking at me: "Monsieur Henri-Richie,
Monsieur Henri-Richie! mille complimens . . . et les potages,
Monsieur! --a la Camerani, a la tortue, aux petits pois . . . c'est en
vrai artiste que j'ai su tout retarder jusqu'au dernier moment . . . .
Monsieur! cher Monsieur Henri-Richie, je vous en supplie, laissez-la,
ces planteurs de choux." And John Thresher, as spokesman for the rest:
"Master Harry, we beg to say, in my name, we can't masticate comfortably
while we've got a notion Mr. Frenchman he 's present here to play his
Frenchified tricks with our plain wholesome dishes. Our opinion is, he
don't know beef from hedgehog; and let him trim 'em, and egg 'em,' and
bread-crumb 'em, and pound the mess all his might, and then tak' and roll
'em into balls, we say we wun't, for we can't make English muscle out o'
that."--And Alphonse, quite indifferent to the vulgar: "He! mais pensez
donc au Papa, Monsieur Henri-Richie, sans doute il a une sante de fer:
mais encore faut-il lui menager le suc gastrique, pancreatique . . . ."'

'Ay, ay!' laughed my father; 'what sets you thinking of Alphonse?'