You are sorry at
this moment not to be at Epernay to see the destroyer of your peace
married: you had rather assist at the making of a wife than at the
making of a widow."
I was just sending Fortnoye to the gloomiest shades of Acheron when a
strong hand entered the carriage-door, helped me handsomely down the
steps, and then began warmly to shake my own. Fortnoye!--Fortnoye
in flesh and blood was before me. While my mouth was yet filled with
maledictions he began to pour out a storm of thanks with all his own
particular warmth, expressing the most effusive gratitude for the
trouble I had taken in forsaking my route to be his wife's bridesmaid.
That is what he called it. "She has but one other," said Fortnoye.
At the same time I began to recognize other faces not unknown to me,
crudely illuminated by the raw colors of the railway-lights. They
all had black wedding-suits and enormous buttonhole nosegays of
orange-flowers. I picked them out, with a particular recognition for
each: 'twas the civil engineer of Noisy; the short gentleman named
Somerard; James Athanasius Grandstone, with his saintly aureole upon
him in the shape of a Yankee wide-awake; the nameless mutes, or rather
chorus, of the champagne-crypt; in short, my nest of serpents in
all its integrity. Still entangled with my slumbers, I hesitated
to respond to the friendly hands that were everywhere thrust
centripetally toward me.
I looked blackly at Hohenfels.
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