He answered right along, and soon I caught a blessed sound: I understood him to say he was out hunting cats. He added, “There they are, yonder;” and turned and pointed. I saw four sorry-looking cats crossing the street in procession some forty steps away. I forgot my own troubles for a moment, to venture a plea for the cats; but before I could get it out, he interrupted with the remark that those were our “engine-house cats,” and went on to say that they were not afraid of dogs or any other creature, and followed him around every morning while he shot their breakfast—English sparrows. He called, “Come, Dick!” and Dick came, and so did the rest. Aha!—so far from being a madman, he was saner, you see, than the average of our race; for he had a warm spot in him for cats. When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction. So I dropped the barber-shop scheme, and Hercules and I went promenading up and down the Sunday stillnesses, talking, and watching for sparrows, while the four cats followed in patient procession behind. I made so many intelligent observations about cats, that I grew in the estimation of Hercules, right along—that was plain to see; but at last in an unlucky moment I dimmed and spoiled this effect by letting out the fact that I was a poor shot and had no improvable talent in that line. I saw in a flash the damage I had done myself, and hastened to switch off onto something else and try to get back my lost ground. I praised the gun again, and asked where I could get one like it. The address given was unfamiliar to me, but I said,—
“I can manage it, though; for Mr. Langdon or Mr. Crane will know.”
Hercules came to a sudden stop; ordered arms; leaned on his gun, and began to inspect me with a face all kindled with interest. He said:
“Do you live up on the East Hill with Mr. Crane, summers?”
“Yes.”
“No! But is—is it you?”
I said yes, and he broke all out into welcoming smiles, and put out his hand and said heartily:
“Well, here I’ve been poking round and round with you and never once—Look here, when a man’s done what you’ve done, he don’t need to give a damn whether he can shoot or not!”
What an immense compliment it was!—that “Is it you?” No need to mention names—there aren’t two of you in the world! It was as if he had said, “In my heedlessness I took you for a child’s toy-balloon drifting past my face—and Great Scott, it’s the moon!”
A consciously exaggerated compliment is an offence; but no amount of exaggeration can hurt a compliment if the payer of it doesn’t know he is exaggerating. In fact, if he can superbly seem unconscious, he may depend upon it that even that will answer. There is the instance of that minister of Napoleon’s who arrived late at the council board at a time when six kings were idling around Paris waiting for a chance to solicit concessions and relaxings of one sort or another. The emperor’s brow darkened and he delivered a thunder-blast at the procrastinating minister; who replied with apparently unstudied simplicity—
“Sire, at any other court I had not been late. I hurried as I could, but my way was obstructed by the concourse of tributary kings!”
The brow of the master of the world unclouded. I know how good he felt.
It was in the jungle. The fox had returned from his travels, and this great assemblage had gathered from the mountains and the plains to hear the wonders he was going to tell about the strange countries he had seen and the wide oceans he had crossed. As he walked slowly up and down the grassy space reserved for him, turning his subject over in his mind and arranging his thoughts, he was the centre and focus of an absorbing interest. All eyes followed him back and forth, and the light of admiration was in them, and in some a frank glint of envy. It was not to be denied that contact with the great world had had a gracious and elevating effect upon him. His carriage was graceful, mincing, polished and elegant beyond anything that had been seen in the back woods before; his manners were dignified, easy, and full of distinction; his speech was flowing and unembarrassed, and his foreign accent, so far from marring it, added a delicate charm to it.
It was a fine audience. In front, in the place of honor, was the king, the elephant; to his right and left, all around the front row, sat the nobility, the great beasts of prey; back of these, row after row, disposed according to rank and order of precedence, were the other creatures. In front of the king stood the royal chaplain, the marabout, on one leg, and with his eyes closed in meditation. After a time Reynard opened his portfolios and got out his collection of pictures, and was now ready to begin. The marabout asked a blessing, then the king said to Reynard—
“Begin!”
The first picture represented a soldier with a gun, a missionary following him with a book.
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