inence was a
purely physical one. Five feet eight I did not despise, but six feet
alone commanded absolute and genuine respect; and he, I believe, stood
six feet one. The presumption which could keep such a height of
perfection waiting at the front door shocked me beyond expression. No,
not beyond expression, for the triumphant yell with which the hapless
servant-girl was greeted when at last she admitted me, and I burst in
exclaiming, "You have kept the tall gentleman waiting half an hour!"
must have given, I think, some adequate idea of my feelings. To that
incident may I not justly look back with satisfaction? Am I not right in
taking pride to myself for having amused for so long a time one whose
momentary attention the witty and the wise have thought it no slight
thing to have gained? And--who knows?--perhaps he himself did not
altogether forget it, and with the two sturdy _Buben_ on the Rhine-boat,
and those little men he used to meet at Eton or on the play-ground of
the Charterhouse, may not the American boy also have found a place in
his kindly memory? But I wish it clearly understood that I did not force
myself upon his acquaintance: no lion-hunting can be laid to my charge.
On the contrary, after giving him a glance of approbation for proving
such an effectual weapon to me in subduing my enemy in the gate--or
rather the enemy whose offence was that she was anywhere but in the
gate--I did not, I can truly say, bestow another thought upon him till I
was sent for to afford him, at his own special request, the honor of
knowing me. Were there no servants in the kitchen to be tormented? No
cats in the back yard to be chased with wild halloo? No rowdy boys in
the alley with whom to fraternize over pies of communistic mud? No
little sister up stairs much nicer than any tall gentleman, even though
he might have come from across the ocean and be thought a great deal of
by the grown-up people, that I should go out of my way to see him, and
abandon my cherished pursuits to listen to him talking of what I did not
understand, and did not believe was worth understanding? No: my position
was a high one, and I kept to it, for, though I gave up my occupations a
little while and went down to the parlor, it was simply because
politeness and filial obedience were the ruling motives of my conduct.
Of the first formal introduction to my friend I have but a shadowy
recollection. He said, I think, that he wanted to know the impetuous
li