all its details, as can be vouched for by many men of high position who
ought to know better."




CHAPTER IV

CONCERNING STILL OTHER PEOPLE'S CATS


The nearest approach to the real French Salon in America is said to be
found in Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton's Boston drawing-room. In former
days, at her weekly Fridays, Sir Richard Coeur de Lion was always
present, sitting on the square piano amidst a lot of other celebrities.
The autographed photographs of Paderewski, John Drew, and distinguished
litterateurs, however, used to lose nothing from the proximity of Mrs.
Moulton's favorite maltese friend, who was on the most intimate terms
with her for twelve years, and hobnobbed familiarly with most of the
lions of one sort or another who have visited Boston and who invariably
find their way into this room. If there were flowers on the piano,
Richard's nose hovered near them in a perfect abandon of delight.
Indeed, his fondness for flowers was a source of constant contention
between him and his mistress, who feared lest he knock the souvenirs of
foreign countries to the floor in his eagerness to climb wherever
flowers were put. He was as dainty about his eating as in his taste for
the beautiful, scorning beef and mutton as fit only for coarser mortals,
and choosing, like any _gourmet_, to eat only the breast of
chicken, or certain portions of fish or lobster. He was not proof
against the flavor of liver, at any time; but recognized in it his one