will sound better," he admitted. "A Young Man,
a Native of this State, Son of a Leading Citizen, Studies Prosecuted
under the Most Experienced Masters in Paris," he added relishingly.

"But, my dear dad, what is it all about?" I interrupted. "I never even
dreamed of being a sculptor."

"Well, here it is," said he. "I took up the statuary contract on our new
capitol; I took it up at first as a deal; and then it occurred to me it
would be better to keep it in the family. It meets your idea; there's
considerable money in the thing; and it's patriotic. So, if you say the
word, you shall go to Paris, and come back in three years to decorate
the capitol of your native State. It's a big chance for you, Loudon; and
I'll tell you what--every dollar you earn, I'll put another alongside of
it. But the sooner you go, and the harder you work, the better; for if
the first half-dozen statues aren't in a line with public taste in
Muskegon, there will be trouble."

CHAPTER II

ROUSSILLON WINE

My mother's family was Scottish, and it was judged fitting I should pay
a visit, on my way Paris-ward, to my uncle Adam Loudon, a wealthy
retired grocer of Edinburgh. He was very stiff and very ironical; he fed
me well, lodged me sumptuously, and seemed to take it out of me all the
time, cent. per cent., in secret entertainment which caused his
spectacles to glitter and his mouth to twitch. The ground of this
ill-suppressed mirth (as well as I could make out) was simply the fact
that I was an American. "Well," he would say, drawing out the word to
infinity, "and I suppose now in your country things will be so-and-so."
And the whole group of my cousins would titter joyously. Repeated
receptions of this sort must be at the root, I suppose, of what they
call the Great American Jest; and I know I was myself goaded into saying
that my friends went naked in the summer months, and that the Second
Methodist Episcopal Church in Muskegon was decorated with scalps. I
cannot say that these flights had any great success; they seemed to
awaken little more surprise than the fact that my father was a
Republican, or that I had been taught in school to spell _colour_
without the _u_. If I had told them (what was, after all, the truth)
that my father had paid a considerable annual sum to have me brought up
in a gambling-hell, the tittering and grinning of this dreadful family
might perhaps have been excused.

I cannot deny but I was sometimes tempted