traw. "Then," he cried, "we can
register you as an ambassador."

"Bringing my country with me," Driscoll suggested.

So it was all straightened out pleasantly, and quite in the orthodox
manner, too. The American's status was defined. His reception would fall
under the rubric: "Private Audience." There remained only one grave
drawback. The protocol allowed no hints as to the un-protocol aspect of
an ambassador's wardrobe. The hidalgo could only finger nervously the
Imperial Crown in his Grand Uniform, and with stiff dignity take his
leave.

The ambassador who was his own country rode in the marshal's landau to
court, with a retinue of Lancers that was also his guard. Soon they
entered the Paseo, which Maximilian was making beautiful at inordinate
cost as a link between the City and his summer palace, the alcazar of
Chapultepec. Turning into the wide, stately boulevard, Driscoll was that
moment plunged into an eddying splendor of Europe transplanted, and he
blinked his eyes, half humorously. There were mettlesome steeds, and
coaches with a high polish, and silver weighted harness, and the
insolence of livery, and armorial bearings, and the gilt of coronets on
carriage panels. There were silk hats and peaked sombreros, lace
mantillas and Parisian bonnets. A lavish use of French money was doing
these things, and the Mexicans, believing in their aristocracy since the
revival of titles never heard of in Gotha, believed also that such
brilliancy of display made their capital the peer of Vienna, or of the
Quartier St. Germain. The Mexicans were very happy and arrogant over it.

"I wonder how they can fight and yet keep their clothes so pretty,"
thought the Missourian.

The gallant carpet-knighthood of uniforms was bothering him again. They
were dashing, militant, these paladins, a bal masque of luxurious oddity
and color. They twisted waxed moustaches, and their coursers cantered to
and fro in the gay parade, and among them only the charro cavaliers with
a glitter of spangle let one guess that this could be Mexico. There was
the Austrian dragoon with his Tyrolean feather, and the Polish uhlan,
fur fringed, and the Hungarian hussar, whose pelisse dangled
romantically, and there were some fellows in low boots and tights and
high busbies, who were cross-braided on the chest and scroll-embroidered
on the front of the leg, and looked exactly like Tzigane bandmasters or
lion tamers. The Slav, the Magyar, the Czech, and yet other