Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1875 — The French Count. [ARTICLE]

The French Count.

John Welckw, by the grace of Sam. Ward gifted with supreme catering characteristics, gazed upon the epicurean worlds he had conquered, and yet he was not happy. His eyes had dwelled with ill-concealed complacency on his French cook, French dishes, French wines, French nomenclature or tinted bills of fare, and even rested with benevolence on the retreating coat-tails of guests who had taken French leave. The one thing needful to Joint’s happiness was a corps of French waiters. He had taken Patrick, Terrence, Shamus and Barney, and expended much money in Bachelor’s hair-dye, to be used for the transformation of their auburn locks into ebon curls. It Was of no avail, and John tore his back hair and wept as only a defeated and chagrined artist will tear his back hair and weep. The news of the Franco-German war fell upon this eminent caterer’s otherwise benevolent* heart like dew from heaven. His prophetic eye glistened o’er the inevitable results of the contest, aim he dreamt of along line of exiled Alsatian Counts knocking at his front door for employment. They did come—not the Counts, but the aliened Frenchmen—and John engaged a batch without asking for recommendations from their last employers. One was a gay young man, with a predilection for absinthe and the sex. He looked as if he might have been exported by a respectable family to preserve the escutcheon from disgraceful stains; in short, he looked as the general run of the attaches to European legations in America do look. And he ny* in truth been connected for a short time with the culinary bureau of the French Minister. As the story goes, this young fellow, having left lie insignia 01 his daily office In Wicker’s kitchen, arrayed himself in the most regardless style, and adorned the lapel of his professional coat with a bunch of violets, and then presented himself at the rooms of a certain professional gentleman one evening last week, where there were in full blast a musicals and French conversazione. The most respectable people are the most guileless, and it is not to be wondered at that, when our hero introduced himself to the master of the ceremonies as Mons. Edgar de Meilhan, lately attached to the French Legation, the master aforesaid, being an unsuspectin, fold gentleman, should have not only metaphorically taken him to his own bosom, but presented him to the bosoms of several guests, who, being Americans seeing the sights at. the capital, have the American weakness for foreign adventurers very strong. The next seen of M. Edgar de M. was that he was promenading with the lovely, aristocratic and jeweled hand of Miss X. resting on his arm, just where he is wont when on duty to carry his snowy napkin. Edgar looked contented, Miss X. looked proud, and all the other girls envious. By this time it had got rumored around that he was a Codnt, and there was immediately a contest for Edgar. He fell to the lot of Miss Y. Having made her supremely happy by his graciousness he smiled on Miss Z. But the hour came when Edgar must go. Misses X., Y. and Z. pleaded with him in vain. “ Where —why must you go, dear Count?” they said. “ I have an engagement at Welcker’s,” he replied. “ I see a hand ye cannot gee That beckons me away,— I hear a voice ye cannot hear Bids me no longer stay.” It is almost useless to add that the voice and hand referred to were the distinguished caterer’s, for Edgar was on duty at ten o’clock. About half-past eleven that night Misses X., Y. and Z. and their respective fathers dropped in Welcker’s for supper. They had just begun their midnight repast when Miss X. exclaimed, “’Tis Edgar!” gave a heart-rending scream and pointed her fork, upon which was suspended & broiled oyster, at a man gracefully reclining against a distant door-jam, with a crumb-brush in one hand and a plated silver waiter in the other. Mr. X., thinking his daughter was choking, vigorously to thump her back until they both got red in the face and she prayed for mercy. Miss Y.’s eyes followed the direction of Miss X.’s fork and she shrieked, “’Tisde Meilhan!’’and fainted, with her hack-hair resting in her father’s stewed oysters. Miss Z., who is some forty summers, whispered, “’Tis the Count—the perfidious Count. Papa, take me home to mamma,” and fell into her father’s arms. Count Edgar de Meilhan, like Nero fiddling o’er the ruins of Rome, whistled “II Bacio,” accompanying himself on the silver waiter with the crumb-brush, and placidly gazed upon; the three victims of his charms of person and conversation. The three gentlemen—respectable and muscular pork merchants from Cincinnati— Simultaneously recognized “ the Count” and the situation. “ Our army swore terribly in Flanders, but it was nothing to thisi’ said Uncle Toby, for as each father he. i in his arms the limp figure of a disorganized and mortified daughter they could do nothing else but swear, and, as they began cursing him in chorus as a “frog-eating Frenchman,” the Count, in response to the call of the head-waiter, said: “Comtog, sir; coming, sir,” and, bowing to the discomfited group, “ Adieu, adieu,” he cried, disappeared in the kitchen to toast some cheese, as the assistant cook had gone over to a fashionable masquerade in Georgetown in the character of Bayard, sans peur et sans reproche. — Washington Capital. The Youngstown (Ohio) Register tells a tough story. A man employed in one of the iron mills in that place had a finger cut off in the large shears. The Register closes the “ item” with this statements “ The first intimation that Mr. Cook had of %is misfortune was from a fellowworfman, who picked up the end of the severed finger from under the shears end handed it to him.” If that man should be banged he wouldn’t knoyr anything about it until, some kind friend called his attention to the account of the execution in the newspapers. The Shakers of Lebanon shook out. a clear profit of $26,000 list year.