olens_; but probably
this was lucky for him and the public was spared much that is
uninteresting. In connection with his duties at Grace Church he came in
contact with many fashionable people, and was enabled to add materially
to his rather small income by calling carriages from the doorsteps for
the society folk of the great metropolis. In this and other ways his
pursuits gradually became so varied that in time he might have been
safely classed among the _dilettanti_. The most remarkable feature of
his career, however, was the fact that, in spite of his humble calling,
he became a veritable social dictator, and many an ambitious mother with
a thousand-dollar ball upon her hands (this being about the usual sum
spent upon an evening entertainment at that time), lacked the courage to
embark upon such a venture without first seeking an interview with
Brown. I knew but little about his powers of discrimination, as we as a
family never found his services necessary, but when requested I know he
furnished to these dependent hostesses lists of eligible young men whom
he deemed proficient in the polka and mazurka, the fashionable dances of
the day. Strange as it may appear, I can vouch for the truth of the
statement that many an exclusive hostess was glad to avail herself of
these lists of the accommodating Brown. The dances just mentioned were,
by the way, introduced into this country by Pierro Saracco, an Italian
master who taught me to dance, and who was quite popular in the
fashionable circles of his day. Many years later, when I was residing in
Maryland, he came to Frederick several times a week and gave dancing
lessons to my two older daughters.

Brown was a pleasant, genial, decidedly "hail-fellow-well-met" man, as I
remember him, and was in a way the precursor of Ward McAllister, though
of course on a decidedly more unpretentious plane. One cannot but
express surprise at the consideration with which Brown's _proteges_ were
treated by the _elite_, nor can one deny that the social destinies of
many young men were the direct result of his strenuous efforts. I
remember, for example, one of these who at the time was "a youth to
fortune and to fame unknown," whom Brown took under his sheltering wing
and whose subsequent social career was shaped by him. He is of foreign
birth, with a pleasing exterior and address and, through the
instrumentality of his humble friend who gave him his first start, is
to-day, although advanced in