One old gentleman
had a peculiar fascination from the infantile innocence of his gums when
he threw his head back to laugh, and showed an upper jaw toothless except
for two incisors, standing guard over the chasm between. Suddenly he
choked, coughed to relieve himself, hawked, held his napkin up before
him, and--
"Noblesse oblige," said March, with the tone of irony which he reserved
for his wife's preoccupations with aristocracies of all sorts. "I think I
prefer my Hair Professor, bourgeois, as he is."
The ladies attributively of central Massachusetts had risen from their
table, and were making for the door without having paid for their supper.
The head waiter ran after them; with a real delicacy for their mistake he
explained that though in most places the meals were charged in the bill,
it was the custom in Carlsbad to pay for them at the table; one could see
that he was making their error a pleasant adventure to them which they
could laugh over together, and write home about without a pang.
"And I," said Mrs. March, shamelessly abandoning the party of the
aristocracy, "prefer the manners of the lower classes."
"Oh, yes," he admitted. "The only manners we have at home are black ones.
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