Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/232

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS style—that the Scriptures might be fulfilled to the uttermost, as indeed they were. From the White Horse Inn, Piccadilly, a fortnight later, we took the road and shared its carnival, on the finest tallyho obtainable; whip, guard, lackey, hampers and all. Nothing was omitted in the going and coming. It was a brilliant day; our coach rounded to in the center of the field, as in Frith's picture, and there were the gipsy tumblers on the green, the lunchers, the Prince of Wales, the race—with the Duke of Westminster's colors to the fore. Yes, and we saw a welcher mobbed, and everything else was accomplished; and I still cherish a fading tin-type exhibit of our group on the tallyho, lifting our cups, with King as toastmaster.

Our Prince of paradox would not bide another day in London, but sped to France, leaving me a bearer of ill tidings to those who knew he was coming, and whose desire to welcome him taught me that he was an international character. When I overtook him in Paris he was on the eve of going to his longed-for Spain; not, indeed, to tarry even there, but to push right through to Morocco or Algeria, upon the trail of a certain unique shawl, or curtain, or tapestry, which he alone must possess. Of his return to Spain, his social life in France, his conquest of England, his blood-brotherhood with Ferdinand Rothschild, and of the spolia opima brought back to America,—are they not all written in the book of the hearts that held him dear?

Thus have I told how Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his life thereafter. I do not know [218]