ore,--delighted to repudiate the dandyism and enjoy the claret at
the same time."

"They tell me it's vulgar and old-fashioned, and I don't know what else,
to take wine with a man," resumed the old sailor, encouraged by his
success to engage a wider attention.

"I only object to the custom when practised at a royal table," said
Maitland, "and where it obliges you to rise and drink your wine
standing." As some of the company were frank enough to own that they
heard of the etiquette for the first time, and others, who affected
to be conversant with it, ingeniously shrouded their ignorance, the
conversation turned upon the various traits which characterize
different courtly circles; and it was a theme Maitland knew how to make
amusing,--not vaingloriously displaying himself as a foreground figure,
or even detailing the experiences as his own, but relating his anecdotes
with all the modest diffidence of one who was giving his knowledge at
second-hand.

The old General was alone able to cap stories with Maitland on this
theme, and told with some gusto an incident of his first experiences at
Lisbon. "We had," said he, "a young attache to our Legation there; I
am talking of, I regret to say, almost fifty years ago. He was a very
good-looking young fellow, quite fresh from England, and not very long,
I believe, from Eton. In passing through the crowd of the ball-room,
a long streamer of lace which one of the Princesses wore in her hair
caught in the attache's epaulette. He tried in vain to extricate
himself, but, fearing to tear the lace, he was obliged to follow the
Infanta about, his confusion making his efforts only the more hopeless.
'Where are you going, sir? What do you mean by this persistence?' asked
a sour-faced old lady-of-honor, as she perceived him still after them.
'I am attached to her Royal Highness,' said he, in broken French, 'and I
cannot tear myself away.' The Infanta turned and stared at him, and then
instantly burst out a-laughing, but so good-humoredly withal, and with
such an evident forgiveness, that the duenna became alarmed, reported
the incident to the Queen, and the next morning our young countryman got
his orders to leave Lisbon at once."

While the company commented on the incident, the old General sighed
sorrowfully,--over the long past, perhaps,--and then said, "He did not
always get out of his entanglements so easily."

"You knew him, then?" asked some one.

"Slightly; but I served for ma