He had always been,
regarded as the most elegant gentleman in his territory, and it was
conceded by all that no man thereabouts was anywhere near his equal in
the telling of an obscene story except the venerable white-haired
governor himself. The Hon. Higgins had not come to serve his country in
Washington for nothing. The appropriation which he had engineered
through Congress for the maintenance, of the Indians in his Territory
would have made all those savages rich if it had ever got to them.
The Hon. Mrs. Higgins was a picturesque woman, and a fluent talker, and
she held a tolerably high station among the Parvenus. Her English was
fair enough, as a general thing--though, being of New York origin, she
had the fashion peculiar to many natives of that city of pronouncing saw
and law as if they were spelt sawr and lawr.
Petroleum was the agent that had suddenly transformed the Gashlys from
modest hard-working country village folk into "loud" aristocrats and
ornaments of the city.
The Hon. Patrique Oreille was a wealthy Frenchman from Cork. Not that he
was wealthy when he first came from Cork, but just the reverse.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80