hat he must bring this to an end, and, like any young
person who has learned neither deceit nor disrespect to seniors, he
attempted to reason it down.

"You do not think many of our public men are dishonest!"

"Sir!" replied the rhetorician, with a patronizing smile, "h-you must be
thinking of France!"

"No, sir; of Louisiana."

"Louisiana! Dishonest? All, sir, all. They are all as corrupt as
Olympus, sir!"

"Well," said Frowenfeld, with more feeling than was called for, "there
is one who, I feel sure, is pure. I know it by his face!"

The old man gave a look of stern interrogation.

"Governor Claiborne."

"Ye-e-e g-hods! Claiborne! _Claiborne!_ Why, he is a Yankee!"

The lion glowered over the lamb like a thundercloud.

"He is a Virginian," said Frowenfeld.

"He is an American, and no American can be honest."

"You are prejudiced," exclaimed the young man.

Citizen Fusilier made himself larger.

"What is prejudice? I do not know."

"I am an American myself," said Frowenfeld, rising up with his face
burning.

The citizen rose up also, but unruffled.

"My beloved young friend," laying his hand heavily upon the other's
shoulder, "you are not. You were merely born in America."

But Frowenfeld was not appeased.

"Hear me through," persisted the flatterer. "You were merely born in
America. I, too, was born in America--but will any man responsible for
his opinion mistake me--Agricola Fusilier--for an American?"

He clutched his cane in the middle and glared around, but no person
seemed to be making the mistake to which he so scornfully alluded, and
he was about to speak again when an outcry of alarm coming
simultaneously from Joseph and the _marchande_ directed his attention to
a lady in danger.

The scene, as afterward recalled to the mind of the un-American citizen,
included the figures of his nephew and the new governor returning up
the road at a canter; but, at the time, he knew only that a lady of
unmistakable gentility, her back toward him, had just gathered her robes
and started to cross the road, when there was a general cry of warning,
and the _marchande_ cried, "_Garde choual!_" while the lady leaped
directly into the danger and his nephew's horse knocked her to
the earth!

Though there was a rush to the rescue from every direction, she was on
her feet before any one could reach her, her lips compressed, nostrils
dilated, cheek burning, and eyes flashing a lady's wrath upon a
dismounted