"I am sorry to speak so of any one whose hospitality I have accepted,
but unless it is your wish I hope never to accept it again. They all
smell of their beer. Everything is so coarse, lavish, and ostentatious.
They tell you as through a brazen trumpet on every side, 'We are rich.'"
"They give magnificent suppers," said Mr. Ludolph, in apology.

"More correctly, the French cook they employ gives them. I do not
object to the nicest of suppers, but prefer that the Browns be not on
the _carte de menu_. From the moment our artistic programme ended,
and the entertainment fell into their hands, it began to degenerate
into an orgy. Nothing but the instinctive restraints of good-breeding
prevents such occasions from ending in a drunken revel."

"You are severe. Mr. Brown's social effort is not a bad type of the
entertainments that prevail in fashionable life."

"Well, it may be true, but they never seemed to me so lacking in good
taste and refinement before. Wait till we dispense choice viands and
wines to choicer spirits in our own land, and I will guarantee a
marvellously wide difference. Then the eye, the ear, the mind, shall
be feasted, as well as the lower sense."

"Well, I do not see why you should be disgusted with yourself. I am
sure that you covered yourself with glory, and were the belle of the
occasion."

"That is no great honor, considering the occasion. Father, strange as
it may seem to you, I envied your man-of-all-work to-night. Did you
not mark the effect of his singing?"