Although we live under a democratic government, the rule of equality, the time is still far off when you will see the noble father dining beside the prefect at the table of the judge of appeal, and the actress open the ball with the prefect at the house of the general-in-chief! Well! We can dine and dance among ourselves--" "And be just as happy, Monsieur Caterna." "Certainly no less, Monsieur Claudius," replied the future premier comic of Shanghai, shaking an imaginary frill with the graceful ease of one of Louis XV.'s noblemen.
At this point, Madame Caterna came up.

She was in every way worthy of her husband, sent into the world to reply to him in life as on the stage, one of those genial theater folks, born one knows not where or how, but thoroughly genuine and good-natured.
"I beg to introduce you to Caroline Caterna," said the actor, in much the same tone as he would have introduced me to Patti or Sarah Bernhardt.
"Having shaken hands with your husband," said I, "I shall be happy to shake hands with you, Madame Caterna." "There you are, then," said the actress, "and without ceremony, foot to the front, and no prompting." "As you see, no nonsense about her, and the best of wives--" "As he is the best of husbands." "I believe I am, Monsieur Claudius," said the actor, "and why?
Because I believe that marriage consists entirely in the precept to which husbands should always conform, and that is, that what the wife likes the husband should eat often." It will be understood that it was touching to see this honest give-and-take, so different from the dry business style of the two commercials who were in conversation in the adjoining car.
But here is Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer, wearing a traveling cap, coming out of the dining car, where I imagine he has not spent his time consulting the time-table.
"The good man of the hat trick!" said Caterna, after the baron went back into the car without favoring us with a salute.
"He is quite German enough!" said Madame Caterna.
"And to think that Henry Heine called those people sentimental oaks!" I added.
"Then he could not have known that one!" said Caterna.

"Oak, I admit, but sentimental--" "Do you know why the baron has patronized the Grand Transasiatic ?" I asked.
"To eat sauerkraut at Pekin!" said Caterna.
"Not at all.

To rival Miss Nelly Bly.

He is trying to get around the world in thirty-nine days." "Thirty-nine days!" exclaimed Gaterna.