ith a broad point did not exist. As
for the ink, it was thick at the bottom and thin on the top. He had to
stir it about each time he put the pen in.

I was more than mortified.

PARIS, _1899_.

Dear L.,--Ambassador Eustis has been replaced by General Porter. It is
fortunate for America that we have so clever and tactful a gentleman
for our representative, especially in this moment of the
Spanish-American War. The French sympathies are (or were) with the
Spaniards, and the articles in the newspapers are, to say the least,
satirical of the "Yankees."

When the reporters interviewed the Ambassador they got such a clear,
straight, and concise view of the situation that they changed entirely
their attitude, and _now_ at last the papers tell the truth.

General Porter and his wife have taken the beautiful Spitzer Hotel and
are the personifications of hospitality. The marble staircase is
draped with the American flag. They receive in the ancestral hall
filled with knights in armor, and the guests sit in medieval chairs.
The picture-gallery, which is famous, is lighted at _al giorno_. I
fancy that most of the pictures have been taken away; however, there
are a few in each of the small rooms, through which the guests wander
with their heads at an angle giving an impression of subtle criticism.

General Porter always has a story _a propos_, no matter what you are
talking about. I wish I could remember some of the best. This one I
_do_ remember. He said: "I never believe but half of what is told me,
but," he added, laughing and pointing to a lady, who recently had
twins, "this does not apply to _her_." He borrowed from Coquelin the
following, "All American women are like pins--they go just as far as
their heads allow them." Is this original? I think it good if it is.

Do you remember Countess de Trobriand?

Well, she is still flourishing at the ripe age of eighty, and gives
_soirees_ in her apartments in the Champs Elysees. Some one said of
these entertainments that they were not _assez brilliant_ to be called
_trop brilliant_, but might be called _de trop_....

Zola is mixing himself up with _l'affaire_ (that is what one calls the
Dreyfus tragedy; there is no other "affair" that counts), and is
making himself very unpopular. He does not mind what he writes, and
his attacks reach far and wide and spare no one. If he stirs up mud at
the bottom of the well he does it in order to find the truth. At any
rate, he is hones