I would, for
the joke's sake, that it had been done. Personages at the tavern: the
Governor, somewhat stared after as he walked through the bar-room;
Councillors seated about, sitting on benches near the bar, or on the
stoop along the front of the house; the Adjutant-General of the State;
two young Blue-Noses, from Canada or the Provinces; a gentleman "thumbing
his hat" for liquor, or perhaps playing off the trick of the "honest
landlord" on some stranger. The decanters and wine-bottles on the move,
and the beer and soda founts pouring out continual streams, with a whiz.
Stage-drivers, etc., asked to drink with the aristocracy, and mine host
treating and being treated. Rubicund faces; breaths odorous of
brandy-and-water. Occasionally the pop of a champagne cork.
Returned home, and took a lesson in French of Mons. S------. I like him
very much, and have seldom met with a more honest, simple, and apparently
so well-principled a man; which good qualities I impute to his being, by
the father's side, of German blood. He looks more like a German--or, as
he says, like a Swiss--than a Frenchman, having very light hair and a
light complexion, and not a French expression.
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