her guest, and but one, besides
himself, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot and friend. The
friend's face was mouldy, and the friend's figure was fat. His age was
suggestive of the autumnal period of human life. In the course of the
evening he developed two extraordinary capacities. One was a capacity
for silence; the other was a capacity for emptying bottles.

Madame Dor was not in the room. Neither was there any visible place
reserved for her when they sat down to table. Obenreizer explained that
it was "the good Dor's simple habit to dine always in the middle of the
day. She would make her excuses later in the evening." Vendale wondered
whether the good Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic
employment from cleaning Obenreizer's gloves to cooking Obenreizer's
dinner. This at least was certain--the dishes served were, one and all,
as achievements in cookery, high above the reach of the rude elementary
art of England. The dinner was unobtrusively perfect. As for the wine,
the eyes of the speechless friend rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy.
Sometimes he said "Good!" when a bottle came in full; and sometimes he
said "Ah!" when a bottle went out empty--and there his contributions to
the gaiety of the evening ended.

Silence is occasionally infectious. Oppressed by private anxieties of
their own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the
speechless friend. The whole responsibility of keeping the talk going
rested on Obenreizer's shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it.
He opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner, and
sang the praises of England. When other topics ran dry, he returned to
this inexhaustible source, and always set the stream running again as
copiously as ever. Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg
to have been born an Englishman. Out of England there was no such
institution as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as a
beautiful woman. His dear Miss Marguerite would excuse him, if he
accounted for _her_ attractions on the theory that English blood must
have mixed at some former time with their obscure and unknown ancestry.
Survey this English nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid
people! Look at their cities! What magnificence in their public
buildings! What admirable order and propriety in their streets! Admire
their laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other