American who spoke any speech but his own--except that superlatively
great Philadelphian, Benjamin Franklin--of Boston. He didn't talk
Philadelphianese. And you may cotton to that!




II

We must go back to the Fourth of July. When Benton returned with the
French clothes Fitzhugh Williams rose from his downy couch and bathed in
cold water. He was even an eager bather in France, rejoicing in the
feeling of superiority and stoicism which accompanied the pang and pain
of it. But in England, where everybody bathed--or at any rate had water
in their rooms and splashed and said ah! ah! and oh! oh!--he regarded
the morning bath as commonplace, and had often to be bribed into it.

He now had Benton in to rub his back dry, and to hand him his clothes in
sequence; it being his mother's notion that to be truly polite a man
must be helpless in these matters and dependent. And when he had on his
undershirt and his outer shirt and his stockings, he sat down to his
breakfast of chocolate and rolls and Rillet de Tours, which the butler
had just brought; and afterward brushed his teeth, finished dressing,
and ordered Benton to call a fiacre. But finding his mother's victoria
at the door he dismissed the hack, and talked stable matters with
Cunningham, the coachman, and Fontenoy, the tiger, until his mother
came--one of these lovely, trailing visions that are rare even in Paris,
though common enough, I dare say, in paradise.

They drove first of all to Gaston Rennette's gallery, where Fitz