started; though you would hardly have thought a man in his position competent for it. He went out to your place by day break, met the owner of the horse there, represented to him and to your groom that you were detained in town on business and had sent him to pay for the animal. So he did pay for him. Then says he 'Mr. Manhattan has promised me a drive of the horse for my trouble' and he actually borrowed your sulky and harness and drove straight off to Snaffletons.' 'Snaffleton' he says 'I have a first-rate young horse here, but he is too good for a hard-making business man like me, and besides I want some money to take up a note to-day. Just let me show you what time he can make.' So he took him round that half-mile track just below Snaffleton's and he made some very tall time for a green horse, and Snaffleton paid him seven hundred cash down. Your people could n't think what had become of him, till one of Snaffleton's boys came to Devilshoof to say that your sulky and harness were in his yard." The surest way to disarm ridicule is to be the first to tell the story against yourself. This I did, and joined everywhere in the laugh raised at my expense. However the horse was not given up without an effect to recover him, though there was small hope of success. Benschoten had bought the chesnut with his own money or that of his creditors but not mine at any rate, nor had I any witnesses of the original bargain. But then again Silas had represented himself to my groom as acting for me when he bought him, and it stood to reason that I would not buy a horse to sell him again an hour after. The Irishman might have been of some assistance to me, but he had put out for parts unknown, probably Mr. Snaffleton had made it worth his while to do so, on learning the flaw in his own title. In search of Mr. Snaffleton I went. He was a dealer in and trainer of "fast crabs" about two miles below me. At first he put on a most injured innocence air as if I had come to impose upon his guileless simplicity: he had bought the horse and paid a high price for him. I offered him the price and a hundred over for his trouble. He refused, and well he might, for he had already been offered twelve hundred by another party, and the chesnut was believed to be worth at least sixteen. Gradually we got into a considerable heat and made a tolerable row between us. Luckily Mr. Snaffleton was in an unusually generous mood; I suppose like Sampson Brass, he had just been cheating somebody and getting the change; and after we had interchanged much argumentative elocution he thus delivered himself of his ultimatum. "I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Manhattan, I'm an honest man [was there ever a horse-dealer the reverse?] and I want to do what's fair, and not only fair but liberal. I bought the horse and am entitled to him but if you won't make a muss about it, I'll give you four hundred dollars." "Cash? Snaffleton." "Two hundred in bankable bills, there they are" spreading out four fifties of the Merchants' Bank with a magnificent air, "and my note at three months for the balance, if you'll give me a receipt in full of all claims or interest in the horse." It was something to get 200 out of a jockey without having actually given him anything for it. I consented and wrote the discharge, and Mr. Snaffleton wrote me the note at three months in a very professional style of chirography and orthography. "And now" said I, pocketing the four fifties, "you say you want to do what's liberal. So do I: I don't mean to be out-done by you or any other man. This note of yours being of no value whatever, I make you a present of it back again and I hope you duly appreciate my generosity." Three months after this there was a great match on the Centreville between two trotters, both untried but both reputed to be something very slashing. I staked a large pile on my horse, as we continued to call him because he ought to have been mine; and won a few hundreds, but it gave me little consolation; I was more vexed than ever to think how I had lost that chesnut, after his making such time as he then did. I saw Amanda once again. It was the very next summer at Saratoga in the height of the season. How she got it deponent saith not, but she had plenty of money and was living on intimate terms with a very respectable Presbyterian family. She passed for a lady whose husband had been suddenly called away to the South on business. As the Presbyterian family were not in our set, it was no business of mine to tell them who she was. THE DUCHESS' POCKET-HAND KERCHIEF. A STORY WITH SEVERAL MORALS, AND NO PARTICULAR PLOT. Knickerbocker, January 1855. MRS. ROBINSON was at a ball, sitting along-side the Duchess of Castelfondu, a real live French duchess of the Faubourg St. Germain. Who was Mrs. Robinson? She was an American lady, and that is enough. Be assured she was no body whom you know. There is not the least possible allusion intended to the Robinsons of X-place, who are in your set, or the Robinsons of Y street, who are not. If you will be very curious, her husband came originally of an English family, and was related to the Mr. Robinson who made that famous tour with Messrs. Brown and Jones, a year or two ago. How did Mrs. Robinson come into her present position? Travelling for mere guide-book purposes is pretty plain sailing in these days of Murray and steam, when all the world speaks English, and the rest of mankind French. But travelling abroad, or living abroad, for the sake of foreign society, is another matter, and somewhat of a mystery still. Every man can go to Corinth now-a-days, but not every man or woman can see all the Corinthians. Overhaul the list of your own and your friends' experience; you will find some queer pages in it, and not a few puzzling contrasts. Mrs. Mgoes abroad, dines with a prince in one country, lives at an earl's house in another, and so forth. Mrs. N every way her equal, moving in precisely the same sphere at home, and fortified with as good antecedents and recommendations, takes very nearly the same tour without receiving the least attention worth talking of when she -- gets back. She thinks it very queer. But, queerer still, Mrs. O, who was altogether 'second set' compared with Mesdames M and N, takes her tour, and knows twice as many great people as Mrs. Mdid; in fact, has scarcely any thing less than a duchess on her visitinglist. How shall we account for this? Without pretending to do so fully, we will suggest some partial explanations. In all circles, except the strictest court and diplomatic ones, where every thing and every body go by label and ticket, change of country has a tendency to modify a man's social position, either by causing his antecedents to be ignored, or by (excuse the expression) diminishing the probability of his consequents. He has travelled partly away from the social distinctions of one country, without fully entering into those of the other. There is a stage of society in which foreigners, as such, are natural objects of aversion, and the same word expresses a stranger and an enemy. But this state of things is true only of a barbarous stage. Among all respectable classes of civilized society there is, on the contrary, rather a prepossession in favor of a stranger, (except, of course, where particular national enmities come into play.) We need not seek any very lofty or disinterested motive for this. All classes or sets (with the possible exception of purely intellectual ones) must get tired of one another; and it would hardly be going too far to say that the more eclectic, and exclusive, and fashionable a set is, the more selfwearying it becomes. All your 'punkins,' of all countries, would willingly change their circle from time to time if they could do so without permanently descending from the pedestal of their real or fancied dignity. If they could take up people of other sets for a time only, they would be glad to do so. Now the stranger comes in exactly to supply this want. He gives them freshness and variety of ideas for a time, and they are not troubled with him afterward. Therefore they are willing enough to receive him, if he saves their dignity by making the first advances. And if, in addition, he puts himself to what the French call the expenses of the intercourse, not metaphorically merely, but also literally, they are not only willing but delighted to associate with him. But if the stranger pretends to meet them on equal ground, and is not ready to make a gratuitous and repeated outlay of money, or flattery, or both, then the case is altered; his claims are either critically scrutinized, or dismissed without scrutiny. This is one reason why fashionable success abroad does not follow home rules, nay, sometimes seem to reverse them; and also why the very people whom you would suppose most qualified for living and enjoying themselves abroad frequently return in disgust after a very short trip, considerably un-Europeanized in their predilections; for these had stood too much on their dignity, supposing themselves to be somebody on the east side of the Atlantic, because they were somebody on the west, or laying too much stress on a few introductory letters, or on other claims of which we shall say more presently; in fact, considering that they had changed their country only, and not their sphere. Whereas Mr. and Mrs. Nobody, not supposing themselves in fashionable society, to begin with, make the same efforts to get into it that they would at home, and often with greater success. We have incidentally alluded to letters of introduction. No part of our subject is more dubious and more difficult to reduce to rule. Perhaps one might venture to condense the result of one's experience into two general propositions: first, that such letters are much less readily and frequently given in Europe than with us; second, (what seems rather paradoxical at first,) that they are of much less value when given. But you will find much contradiction in practice, and many exceptions. One friend will tell you that he has derived the greatest benefit from his letters; another, that equally good ones have been of no appreciable service to him. Nay, I have known A to be better treated solely on the strength of B's letters, than B had ever been himself by the persons to whom he recommended A. This is a case which can hardly be accounted for on any other supposition than that of accident or caprice. But to return: there is one cause of complaint often alleged by Americans against Europeans. You hear it most frequently from 'our best society,' and it is one of the reasons why they are so often disgusted with Europe. But it applies generally, and is only oftener heard from them because their accidental position brings foreigners in America more into contact with them. The charge is |