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Allie went into her mother's bed room to get ready, and in a few minutes returned, her countenance beaming with animation and pleasure. They all went down to the door of the hotel. There were several carriages standing in the square. The coachmen, as soon as they saw the party at the door, all began to hold up their whips, and to call to Rollo. Some of them began to move their horses towards him.
There would doubtless have been more people had the weather been fine; but it was raining heavily, and below, in the vast court that formed the centre of the palace, the lamps of fifty carriages gleamed through the water and the darkness, and the coachmen, of all dimensions and characters, sat beneath their huge umbrellas and growled to each other, envying the lot of the footmen who were congregated in the ante-chamber up-stairs around the great bronze braziers.
Johnson, in Adams's ear; Vanity Fair was alive on Piccadilly in yellow chariots with coachmen in wigs, on hammer-cloths; footmen with canes, on the footboard, and a shrivelled old woman inside; half the great houses, black with London smoke, bore large funereal hatchments; every one seemed insolent, and the most insolent structures in the world were the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England.
Up to that time he had looked upon such beings as unapproachable, born solely to ride in magnificent carriages, with liveried footmen and stylish coachmen, and to cast indifferent glances on the poor man travelling on foot in a cheap cloak. And now, all of a sudden, one of these very beings had entered his room; he was painting her portrait, was invited to dinner at an aristocratic house.
And she received not only boots, but a muff likewise, and was neatly dressed; and when she was ready to depart, a coach, made of pure gold, stopped before the door. Upon it shone like a star the coat of arms of the prince and princess; coachmen, footmen, and outriders for there were outriders, too sat on horseback, with gold crowns on their heads.
In fact, we suspect that the reason why English "flunkeys" hate American "flunkeyism," with its laced coachmen, etc., is because mere money, by aping the insignia of rank, its gewgaws and trumpery, shows too plainly how much of the rank itself depends upon the fabrics and demonstrations through which it sets itself forth.
Some were driven by coachmen with enormous double faces: one face leering at the horses: the other cocking its extraordinary eyes into the carriage: and both rattling again, under the hail of sugar-plums.
The coachmen of all these carriages, as soon as they saw the boys come out, began immediately to call out to them, and crack their whips, and make other such demonstrations to attract their attention. "Now," said Rollo to Josie, "we must walk along carelessly, and not appear to look at the carriages as if we wanted one; for if we do, they will come driving towards us in a body.
Carriages were huddled up in line upon the stands and the coachmen shivered miserably on their seats, the rain dripping in steady drops from the brims of their hats into the laps of their mackintoshes. So she kept her head down, and when she heard footsteps mounting the stairway, approaching her, she held out the three coppers for her fare without looking up.
He turned to the other serfs, with the most despairing signs, questioned them about her, pointing to her height from the ground, describing her with his hands. . . . Some of them really did not know what had become of Mumu, and merely shook their heads; others did know, and smiled to him for all response; while the steward assumed an important air, and began scolding the coachmen.
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