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The coachmen's whips left their sockets, and coupé and carriage dashed along 42nd Street and down Fifth Avenue. The ten minutes' drive passed as a dream to some in the carriage. Mrs. Harris's mind revelled in the intricate warfare of society. She had often been in New York, and in the summers was seen at the most fashionable watering places with her children.

In one room the real coachmen dined, in the other the amateur gentlemen, who, when they are tired of their own conversation, throw open the glass doors, that they may be entertained and edified by the coachmen's wit and slang; in which dialect English Clay's rapid proficiency has, it is said, recommended him to the best society, even more than his being the master of the best of cooks, and of Clay-hall.

We got along with the bill very well for a good part of the day, until Knott took the floor and made one of his incomparably funny speeches, depicting the situation on Pennsylvania Avenue, with its fine carriages and outfits, with buckles on the coachmen's hats as big as garden gates. He made so much fun of the bill that Cook, being unable to stand it, moved that the committee rise.

The little cards, however, with names engraved on them, are a more serious problem than the flowers. More horses' legs have been worn out, more coachmen's lives consumed, more hours of sound afternoon time vainly lavished than served to win us the battle of Waterloo, and pay for it into the bargain.

Arriving at the house in K Street, Coogan, sneaking through a side entrance and across the yard at the rear, took his master's clothing up to his own little room over the stables, where he carefully selected such articles as seemed to strike his fancy. It was the night of the coachmen's ball, and Dennis did not propose to be eclipsed at that event by any Jehu who ever handled the ribbons.

Had that animal Coupeau gone to the Arc de Triomphe to get his dram? They had already done the upper part of the street, looking in at all the likely places; at the "Little Civet," renowned for its preserved plums; at old mother Baquet's, who sold Orleans wine at eight sous; at the "Butterfly," the coachmen's house of call, gentlemen who were not easy to please. But no Coupeau.

Such seas of ice! such going in sledges! such barbarians! such beds! and scarcely a looking-glass! And nothing fit to wear but what one carries with one, and God knows how long we may stay. At Petersburg the coachmen's ears are frozen off every night on their boxes waiting for their ladies.

The silence was so complete that the murmurs of the coachmen's voices could be heard from the courtyard, and the pawing and champing made by horses when asking to be taken back to their stable. "The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality," said the Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife.

There are many others who are not so lucky as chauffeurs' or coachmen's children; think of the little children who belong to the organ-grinders, and who are taken about in a basket tied on to the grinding organ, with the hideous noise in their ears all day. I wonder that they can ever hear at all when they grow up.

This Northern section of the land has become a great variety shop, of which the Atlantic cities are the long-extended counter. We have grown rich for what? To put gilt bands on coachmen's hats? To sweep the foul sidewalks with the heaviest silks which the toiling artisans of France can send us?