Meanwhile the ladies were not having such a bad time, after all.
Once having gained possession of the House-boat, they were loath to think of ever having to give it up again, and it is an open question in my mind if they would not have made off with it themselves had Captain Kidd and his men not done it for them.
"I'll never forgive these men for their selfishness in monopolizing all this," said Elizabeth, with a vicious stroke of a billiard-cue, which missed the cue-ball and tore a right angle in the cloth."It is not right.""No," said Portia."It is all wrong; and when we get back home I'm going to give my beloved Bassanio a piece of my mind; and if he doesn't give in to me, I'LL reverse my decision in the famous case of Shylock versus Antonio.""Then I sincerely hope he doesn't give in," retorted Cleopatra, "for I swear by all my auburn locks that that was the very worst bit of injustice ever perpetrated.Mr.Shakespeare confided to me one night, at one of Mrs.Caesar's card-parties, that he regarded that as the biggest joke he ever wrote, and Judge Blackstone observed to Antony that the decision wouldn't have held in any court of equity outside of Venice.If you owe a man a thousand ducats, and it costs you three thousand to get them, that's your affair, not his.If it cost Antonio every drop of his bluest blood to pay the pound of flesh, it was Antonio's affair, not Shylock's.However, the world applauds you as a great jurist, when you have nothing more than a woman's keen instinct for sentimental technicalities.""It would have made a horrid play, though, if it had gone on,"shuddered Elizabeth.
"That may be, but, carried out realistically, it would have done away with a raft of bad actors," said Cleopatra."I'm half sorry it didn't go on, and I'm sure it wouldn't have been any worse than compelling Brutus to fall on his sword until he resembles a chicken liver en brochette, as is done in that Julius Caesar play.""Well, I'm very glad I did it," snapped Portia.
"I should think you would be," said Cleopatra."If you hadn't done it, you'd never have been known.What was that?"The boat had given a slight lurch.
"Didn't you hear a shuffling noise up on deck, Portia?" asked the Egyptian Queen.
"I thought I did, and it seemed as if the vessel had moved a bit,"returned Portia, nervously; for, like most women in an advanced state of development, she had become a martyr to her nerves.
"It was merely the wash from one of Charon's new ferry-boats, Ifancy," said Elizabeth, calmly."It's disgusting, the way that old fellow allows these modern innovations to be brought in here! As if the old paddle-boats he used to carry shades in weren't good enough for the immigrants of this age! Really this Styx River is losing a great deal of its charm.Sir Walter and I were upset, while out rowing one day last summer, by the waves kicked up by one of Charon's excursion steamers going up the river with a party of picnickers from the city--the Greater Gehenna Chowder Club, I believe it was--on board of her.One might just as well live in the midst of the turmoil of a great city as try to get uninterrupted quiet here in the suburbs in these days.Charon isn't content to get rich slowly; he must make money by the barrelful, if he has to sacrifice all the comfort of everybody living on this river.Anybody'd think he was an American, the way he goes on; and everybody else here is the same way.The Erebeans are getting to be a race of shopkeepers.""I think myself," sighed Cleopatra, "that Hades is being spoiled by the introduction of American ideas--it is getting by far too democratic for my tastes; and if it isn't stopped, it's my belief that the best people will stop coming here.Take Madame Recamier's salon as it is now and compare it with what it used to be! In the early days, after her arrival here, everybody went because it was the swell thing, and you'd be sure of meeting the intellectually elect.
On the one hand you'd find Sophocles; on the other, Cicero; across the room would be Horace chatting gayly with some such person as myself.Great warriors, from Alexander to Bonaparte, were there, and glad of the opportunity to be there, too; statesmen like Macchiavelli; artists like Cellini or Tintoretto.You couldn't move without stepping on the toes of genius.But now all is different.
The money-getting instinct has been aroused within them all, with the result that when I invited Mozart to meet a few friends at dinner at my place last autumn, he sent me a card stating his terms for dinners.Let me see, I think I have it with me; I've kept it by me for fear of losing it, it is such a complete revelation of the actual condition of affairs in this locality.Ah! this is it," she added, taking a small bit of pasteboard from her card-case."Read that."The card was passed about, and all the ladies were much astonished--and naturally so, for it ran this wise:
NOTICE TO HOSTESSES.
Owing to the very great, constantly growing, and at times vexatious demands upon his time socially,HERR WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZARTtakes this method of announcing to his friends that on and after January 1, 1897, his terms for functions will be as follows:
Dinners with conversation on the Marks Theory of Music 500Dinners with conversation on the Theory of Music, illustrated 750Dinners without any conversation 300Receptions, public, with music 1000"" private, 750Encores (single) 100Three encores for 150Autographs 10Positively no Invitations for Five-o'Clock Teas or Morning Musicales considered.
"Well, I declare!" tittered Elizabeth, as she read."Isn't that extraordinary? He's got the three-name craze, too!""It's perfectly ridiculous," said Cleopatra."But it's fairer than Artemus Ward's plan.Mozart gives notice of his intentions to charge you; but with Ward it's different.He comes, and afterwards sends a bill for his fun.Why, only last week I got a 'quarterly statement'