University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

Of Bosh's dinner at the Firkins's (for the biography of
the two friends may as well keep pace while they are
rooming together), we shall have time to give a general
idea while the humble carryall of the Palefords is winding
its slow way to the Pitti. The court ball was to be late;
and it was a moon to loiter under; and the three friends,
wise enough to realize that life for that hour was as enjoyably
complete as human life could well be, were content
to let Giacomo, the old vintager, who was their driver, take
his time.

The “Palazzo Firkin,” the splendid residence of the
wealthy American family, had been the abode of an
extravagant Russian nobleman, the unpronounceableness
of whose name had facilitated the change to its present
designation, and whose ruin and break-up had chanced to
occur about the time of the arrival in Florence of Mr.
Summutt Firkin, of the wealthy firm of Firkin, Splitfig &

Co., wholesale grocers of Cincinnati. Under the direction
of his daughter (the family government being an oligarchy
of one—'Phia Firkin, as Miss Sophia, the heiress was commonly
called), the Prince had been bought out, “concern
and liabilities”—house, horses, furniture, French cooks,
grooms and dressing-maids, all included—Russia walking
out after breakfast, and America entering in time to dress
for dinner. His ruined Excellency having brought his
establishment to Italy by the way of England, the servants
had picked up English enough in that country to
be intelligible to their new household; and, as parents and
children, were thereby enabled to speak their mother
tongue, and awkwardness, if any there were, was shifted
upon those, either guests or servants, to whom the Ohio
was unhappily a foreign language, Mr. Firkin found himself,
from the start, quite as much of a prince as he had
any occasion to pay-the-bills-and-be; while Mrs. Firkin,
after a few days of effort at “realizing,” was entirely
comfortable. The eldest boy, Master Rodolphus Firkin,
found the stable, with stanhope and “tiger” exactly to his
mind; and the “fast” young lady of eighteen, to whose
wheels in deep water papa and mamma were but the
necessary paddle-boxes, and to whose intended career,
“abroad,” all this was but the delightful machinery, “went
ahead.”

With the variety of governments in Italy, and the embarrassing

difference in their coinage and values, the “letter
of credit” is necessary to all travellers; but this does not
result merely in drawing the amount on arrival. With
the presentation of the letter, the stranger and his family
are invited to the weekly soiree of the banker, which is a
candidacy for the other more exclusive circles; but which
is, more particularly, the “stalking-field” for the damaged
reputations and doubtful titles and fortunes of which Italy
is the “Alsatia.” The banker's “letter of advice” from his
London or New York correspondent (preceding the traveller),
has usually given some idea of his financial consequence
at home, and, this known, the family's remaining
worth-while-ativeness, as acquaintances to cultivate, is
come-at-able readily at a soiree. And it was by introduction
under this knowledge and circumstances, that the
Firkinses enjoyed the distinction of their present titled
acquaintances—the company who were to meet Mr. Blivins
(Lady Highsnake, Baroness Kuhl, Sir Cummit Strong and
Count Ebenhog) having called at the Palazzo Firkin after
an introduction at the banker's, and being now almost the
daily appreciators, both of the brilliant eccentricities of the
marriageable daughter and of the dinners which the Russian
had left in training.

To Bosh, himself, Mr. Firkin was a very old acquaintance.
The “Blivins boat” had carried many a freight of
butter to New Orleans for the house of Firkin & Splitfig,

and the very sight of the son of his old captain relieved
something of the homesickness of the expatriated grocer.
He had used a degree of positiveness not very common
between him and 'Phia, in insisting that Mr. Blivins (who
had not even an artistic repute at Florence), should be cordially
welcomed, at first; though Bosh very soon established
a footing for himself, in Miss Firkin's approbation,
and by a little adventure, which should be given, in fact,
as the introduction to their present friendly intimacy.

The stable of Count Kickubrichinoff had contained several
very fine saddle-horses, of which Miss Firkin, with her
backwoods education in the heart of Kentucky, was, of
course, likely to try the metal. In fact, it was only by
the addition of a horse that she felt entirely herself; and,
with a groom behind her, and a gentleman companion, if
she could get one, the “dashing American heiress” was
soon a well known object of curiosity among the fashionable
equipages on the Cascine.

But, the companion was the trouble! Willing as she
was to furnish the steed for her two titled admirers, there
was no getting them mounted, after the first essay in her
rapid company. Sir Cummit was too carefully put together
(reputation and ivory) to stand such risks of exposure, and
Count Ebenhog, being unfortunately of the pitchfork model
rather than of the tongs, had a top-heavy liability which
was the drawback to his tall seat at table. They might

have had other reasons for not wishing to advertise themselves
as the followers of the heiress, but these were given
as explanatory enough, by the head groom, who, to his
new young lady, had taken a prodigious fancy.

The proposal to ride the spare horse had been made to
Blivins rather as a bagatelle, he having called at the
moment of mounting, and it was somewhat to their surprise
that the “tall and awkward hoosier” gravely accepted.
They mounted him upon a powerful English hunter, which
had been the favorite of the bankrupt Russian; and, with
many a caution from Bill, the groom, particularly as to
the use of the spurs, which Bosh requested might be added
to his equipment, he followed his lady forth like a true
knight.

But the hunter seemed very comfortable and content
under his new rider, and, as Miss Firkin proceeded to try
experiments with her familiar palfrey in the open ground
of the Cascine, she discovered that her companion was as
much at home as herself, and, in fact, was one of those men
recognised as a class in the West, and defined as “born a-horseback.”
Bosh kept like a shadow at her side in all
her vagaries, and was entirely at his ease, so that, on
their return to the city gate, the belle had fallen into a very
demure pace, and was riding like any other lady.

At the gate ahead appeared a difficulty, however.
Across the way stood a mounted dragoon, and it was

at once understood that this less frequented gate was reserved
for the day to the use of some of the Grand Duke's imperial
relatives from Austria, the royal entertainment being a fête
champêtre at the duke's farm. In honor of their Imperial
transit, back and forward for the afternoon, that entrance
to the city was under guard, and common horsemen and
carriages were to go round by the next gate.

Now, to Miss Sophia, this was particularly inconvenient.
Her time had been carefully calculated, and, with a dinner-party
at home and a box at the opera in the evening—toilettes
accordingly—the additional circuit of the three or
four miles was unbearable.

“What shall I do?” she vexatiously inquired of her
companion, after stating the case to him, and finding that
he had not Italian enough even to request leave for a lady
to pass.

“Why, there's but one man that I can see,” said Bosh,
buttoning up his coat, “and, if it's merely him you want
out of the way”—

The Western girl looked at Blivins very inquiringly.
Was he joking?—or crazy?—or was it possible that he
would do so very hoosier a thing as encounter an armed
dragoon for the whim of a lady?

“Do you mean to say that you could remove that
mounted guard so that I can pass?” she asked, bending her
bright black eyes very searchingly upon him.

“Not if he expected me,” he answered, “and I with no
tools—but as matters stand, we can manage to get you
through, easy enough. We'll first get up a pretty fair
pace, as if we saw no reason why he should stop us, and
if he puts out to head us off, why, I'll clap spurs and ride
into him. You are a lady, and it'll be natural to be
frightened and go ahead. He'll go over—with all that
trumpery, and this horse twice his weight—and you'll
have time enough to be out of reach before he picks himself
up, I'll warrant.”

“And you!” asked the now excited girl, giving a
thought to her companion while she felt her Western
blood tingle with the prospect of adventure.

“Oh, I run the same gauntlet, said Blivins, and shall
very likely, get through too. So, turn on the steam!”

With a touch of the spur, Bosh waked up his hunter
very thoroughly and went prancing away, and, a little in
the rear, capered the palfrey of Miss Sophia. With all
the apparent simplicity of “ignorant Inglesi” they approached
the gate; and, as expected, the dragoon put his
charger forward a step and waved his forbidding arm.
The audacious riders kept on. Out flew the sword for intimidation;
and in the next moment, the powerful blood
hunter took the spurs up to the rowels, and, dashing to the
left with a tremendous leap, Bosh and his steed avalanched
into the lap and holsters of the dragoon. Down they went,

pell mell, the charge having been wholly unexpected by
the enemy; but the active hunter, recovering his legs
while the astonished trooper was still thinking of picking
himself out of the dirt, Bosh clapped spurs again and followed
his lady—successfully reaching the Palazzo Firkin
after something very like the tournament of a cavalier.

There was a police arrest, immediately, of course, and it
took some intercession of Paul, through his friend the
Chamberlain, and some considerable “damages” from Mr.
Firkin, for the damaged dragoon, to get Bosh out of the
scrape; but it established the tall hoosier in the favor of
the Kentucky-bred girl—one man, at least, who would “go
the whole” for her—and, at the Firkin dinners he became
thereafter indispensable.

We should fail to give a just idea, however, of the American
heiress' campaign in Florence, without copying a letter
of her own which is under our hand, and which reports
authentically, of course, her mode of “carrying on the war.”
She thus writes (with the exception of such corrections of
spelling and punctuation as the printer is requested to
make in a manuscript indicative of rather a careless education)
to her friend and schoolfellow, Miss Catherine Kumletts,
of Rumpusville, Alabama:—

And, having thus introduced the reader to the company
with whom prosperous Bosh was eating his distinguished
dinner, while Paul was on his evening visit to the Palefords,

let us resume our friend's history by overtaking him,
later that night, on his way to the court ball at the Pitti.