University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.
An Intrigue by Wash. Fudge.

MASTER FUDGE had discovered, if I
remember rightly, that the incognita of the
masked ball could be none other than his old companion
of shipboard, Miss Jenkins. He exulted,
if I remember, in the discovery. It certainly was
amusing. He felt that he was gaining ground.
He enioyed his mirror excessively. Paris observation
had not been in vain. He had grown killing.
I think, in view of the circumstances, I might be
allowed to express a certain degree of pity for
Miss Jenkins.

Washington Fudge, however, did no such thing
—not he; the inexorable, the complacent, the
ravishing, the elegant, the merciless Wash. Fudge!
It is really painful to think what a hecatomb of
young ladies are annually offered up, sacrificed,
burnt, absolutely consumed, in the devotional fires
which such young men inspire. Their fearful
cruelties they wear like honors, and prey ferociously,
summer after summer, upon poor, weak,
harmless, unresisting women. It is my opinion that
they should be restrained, caged, bound with pink
ribbons, their moustaches shaven—anything, in
short, to prevent the sad ravages which they are
committing in the great world of hearts! It is
further my opinion that such restraint or imprisonment
would not be felt, except by the parties themselves.

Now Mr. Fudge was growing riotous one fine
morning over this strange and unexpected conquest
of his, when he was agreeably startled by the
receipt of still another perfumed billet from the
same hand as before, full of pretty praises of his
gallantry and his finesse of spirit; and offering, in
courtly terms, the privilege of another interview;
always, however, under the same precaution of the
mask and secresy.

Such an intrigue, so mysterious, so rich, and

offering such staple for talk among the boys at
home, was vastly gratifying to Mr. Fudge. The
notes he guarded as trophies, and the second adventure
proved even more mystifying than the first.
Miss Jenkins was certainly most adroit in her
manœuvres. Wash. Fudge ventured to hint, in a
timid manner, the possible identity of his domino
with a certain fair young lady of Atlantic experience,
etc.

To all which inuendoes the domino replied by
very significant shrug and deft management of her
fan; intended, perhaps, to allay suspicion; but in
this particular instance tending to confirm it to a
very remarkable degree. I shall enter no defence
of the inhumane manner in which my cousin Wash.
Fudge exulted in his conquest over the heart of
Miss Jenkins.

He determines to call upon that young lady, and
to intimate in his graceful manner that “the secret
was out”—that he felt sensible of the honor conferred,
etc. His professor, who seems well posted
in the morale of these things, highly approves the
procedure. He warns him, however, that a lady
in such a position will naturally avail herself of a
thousand playful équivoques.

I beg leave, then, to attend Wash. Fudge as he
makes his way, upon a cheerful afternoon, after his

usual two-o'clock bottle of vieux Macon, to the
second floor of a substantial hotel in the Rue
Rivoli. A little tremor did very possibly overtake
him as he ascended the waxed stairway, and listened
to the distant tinkling of the bell, au seconde.
It is not the easiest matter in the world, after all,
to approach a pretty lady, who has made some coy
advances. Ladies, I have remarked, bear that sort
of face-to-face encounter much better than the
men—especially such very young men as my cousin
Wash. Fudge.

Howbeit, with the vieux Macon tingling pleasantly
in his brain, and the memory of his last
interview diffusing an agreeable warmth over his
system, Mr. Fudge awaited, in one of those charming
little salons which overlook the garden of the
Tuileries, the appearance of his adventurous entertainer.

That she should take a little time to prepare herself
for the ordeal was a circumstance which seemed
to Mr. Fudge at once highly proper and natural.

Miss Jenkins is looking well—very well. Those
Paris modistes do somehow give a very telling tournure
even to the frailest of American beauties. Her
face and eye, however, were all her own.

Mr. Fudge was delighted to meet Miss Jenkins—
“quite.”

Miss Jenkins manifests a very gracious surprise.

Mr. Fudge hopes that she is well—“indeed, he
need not ask; the fatigues of Paris life do not seem
to overcome her.”

“Not at all.”

“Yet the balls are rather serious.”

“You find them so, Mr. Fudge?”

“Ah, not fatiguing, by no means, au contraire;
but what do you think, Miss Jenkins, of three
o'clock in the morning, in close domino and cruel
mask.”—

“Indeed, I am not familiar with such experience,
Mr. Fudge.”

“Not familiar? (a playful équivoque, thinks Mr.
Fudge); and perhaps Miss Jenkins has never ventured
to amuse herself in this way,” with a leer,
that somewhat surprises our American lady.

“You are quite right, sir.”

“Ah, quite right, I dare say, Miss Jenkins
(another playful équivoque): and do you fancy, Miss
Jenkins, that those rich eyes could be mistaken, or
that delicate hand?” (Mr. Fudge proposes to take
it.)

“Sir!”

“Seriously now, Miss Jenkins,” and Mr. Fudge
throws a little plaintive honesty into his tones, “had
I not the pleasure of a delightful promenade at the

masked ball with a most graceful and piquant lady,
and that lady—could it—could it, Miss Jenkins, be
any other than yourself?”

“What does this mean, sir? Do you imagine I
could so far forget myself?”

“Piquant as ever!”

“But, sir”—

“Oh, it's all right, Miss Jenkins; only a little
continuation of the play.”

“You are impertinent, sir.”

“Ah, Miss Jenkins, Miss Jenkins (with very
tender plaintiveness), and with these sweet notes
(taking them from his pocket) in such a dear little,
ladylike hand; surely you will not be so cruel.”

“Sir, are you aware to whom you are talking?”

“Perfectly (the vieux Macon is in the poor young
man's head); to the divine Miss Jenkins, the domino
qui domine touts cœurs!”

“Sir, you are insufferable!” and Miss Jenkins,
rising, rings the bell, angrily.

“Marie, you will show this gentleman the door.”

It was a conjuncture my cousin Wash. had not
anticipated—a very disagreeable conjuncture. He,
however, summons resolution to kiss his hand to the
“divine” Miss Jenkins, and passes out. His embarrassment
is not relieved by the reception, a few
hours after, of the following rather disagreeable

note from his late fellow-passenger, Mr. Jenkins:

The truth is, Mr. Jenkins was a man who, having
married a fortune, had come to Paris to escape,
as he said, American vulgarity; and to win by
his money a consideration in the old world, which
his small force of character would never give him in
the new.

He was not inclined to favor the extraordinary
advances of our cousin Wash. His letter was not
complimentary; young Fudge and the old professor,
who was in some measure a confidant of
advances, were agreed upon this point.

Another happy adventure, however, of the opera-house
ball restored the tone of Mr. Fudge's complacency;
but what was his extraordinary surprise,
to find that his charming incognita was perfectly
informed of his interview with Miss Jenkins, and
rallied him not a little, in her piquant way, and
with the most voluble fore-finger in the world, upon
his “drunken impertinences!”

Paris is surely a very strange place; and what

with blind doors in the wainscots, and hangings,
and Napoleon's secret police, there was great food
for the young and playful imagination of Mr. Fudge,
junior.

Our hero was growing confused; a fact which,
under the circumstances, will hardly appear unnatural.
What might have been the result of this
confusion, if unrelieved, it would be hard to say.
He however found relief. In answer to the urgent
solicitations pressed by him upon an evening at the
ball, it was his good fortune to receive one of the
most gracious little notes in the world—always
written in the same delicate hand—inviting him,
in the name of the Comtesse de Guerlin, to a “petite
soirée, at No. 10, Rue de Helder.”

A Countess!—happy Washington Fudge! thrice
happy Mrs. Solomon Fudge! Who could have
imagined that the weak-limbed son of the plethoric
Solomon, that the late incumbent of a college-bench
at Columbia, and the cherished son of Mrs. Phœbe
Fudge (late Bodgers), should have won such
brilliant conquest of a scion of the noble stock
of Europe?

Yet it is true. He is there, at length, at the
goal of his hopes; in the presence of a blooming
dowager, who may have been forty, but better
preserved than most American ladies of seven-and-twenty;

and possessing that airiness of manner, and
delicacy of figure which, joined to a fair skin, keen
black eye, and glossy ringlets, were calculated to
weigh upon the heart of our susceptible cousin
Wash. like the graces of seventeen. I doubt if he
even now admits that her years had run to four-and-twenty.

There was an elderly gentleman present, in white
hair and white moustache, and in half-military dress,
who received Mr. Fudge in quite a stately way:
perhaps he was the father of the Countess; perhaps
he was a count himself, or something of that
sort; who knew?

But here I shall allow Washington to describe
matters for himself. I shall quote from a letter
with which I have been favored by one of his young
friends at Bassford's. Nothing is altered, except
the spelling. I observe that young persons
familiar with French are apt to spell English
badly.

“You should have seen the apartments,” he says,
“the neatest, genteelest thing you can possibly
imagine, with or-molu, and chefs-d'æuvre, and all
that: beside the delicatest statuettes. There was
an old gentleman present, with white moustache,
very distinguished-looking—might have been her
uncle.

“She hinted to me, as I came in, by a whisper,
that perhaps I remembered the interviews of the
masked ball?

“`Mais oui,' says I, `Madame.'

“`Eh bien—not a word of it,' said she, and
glanced at the old gentleman in the corner.

“`Enough said,' thinks I. Ain't I a lucky dog,
Fred?

“She is uncommonly pretty; and these French
women have such an artless, taking way with them!
She presented me as a young English friend—ha,
English! good, isn't it?—and highly recommended,
d'une famille distinguée—Fudge. I think the old
lady would prick up her ears at that!

“There was a Marchioness Somebody came in,
in the course of the evening; a splendid-looking
woman, but not equal to ma belle. There were two
or three distinguished-looking men—officers of the
government, I thought; and we had a little écarté
together. I won some forty or fifty francs; didn't
like to take it exactly, but they insisted. They are
stylish, and no mistake.

“Since the first evening, I have been there
frequently; and taken a drive or two in the
Countess's coupé out to the Bois de Boulogne.
Of course I have made her some magnificent
presents; and, egad, I believe the old gentleman

in the white moustache begins to be afraid that the
Countess is a little tender my way!

“We play a little every evening; sometimes the
luck runs rather against me; in fact, I am a little
ashamed to be always winning in such company.
The other evening I was in for seven hundred
francs. But the Countess insisted on my not paying
down, as I would be sure to win again.

“And faith, so I did; but the night after was
down again to the tune of one thousand. However,
I fancy it will all come out about even.

“I have tried to find how the Countess knew so
much about me and my affairs; but she always
staves it off in the prettiest way in the world. She
has got an idea, too, that I am confoundedly rich.
I tell her it isn't so; at which she makes up the
prettiest and most coquettish face you can imagine.

“I met on her stairs the other day my old
professor. It struck me, at first, that perhaps he
knew her, and had “peached” on me. But it
can't be. Do you think it can?

“She tells me I speak too well to need a professor
any more; and she has the delicatest way of
saying, `Mon cher, tu parles bien Français; pas
tout à fait comme Parisien, mais—si gracieusement!'

“Colonel Duprez is the name of the distinguished-looking
gentleman I meet there. He plays devilish

well at écarté—most full of anecdote; he must
have suffered immensely in his day—but not at
cards.

“P. S. I have just come in from the Rue de
Helder. It's about two A. M., and I am nervous.
To tell the truth, I am in for seven or eight
thousand francs. The Countess bet on my hand,
and I thought myself safe. She don't seem to mind
the loss at all.

“I am afraid the governor will get wind of the
matter. If you happen up at the house, do talk
to the old lady about the immense expense of living
in Paris; at least, in genteel society.

“I may work it off to-morrow. But the Colonel
has got an I. O. U. from me. My bankers are
about dry, and I shall have to come down for a
cool three thousand. I hope that the Dauphin
is doing a confounded round business, and the old
man in humor.

“Remember me to the boys.”