"
The chancellery was not exactly in its proper setting. On its
door-step children of the tenements were playing dolls with
clothes-pins; in the street a huckster in raucous tones was offering
wilted cabbages to women in wrappers leaning from the fire
escapes; the smells and the heat of New York in midsummer rose
from the asphalt. It was a far cry to the wave-swept island off the
coast of Brazil.
De la Boissiere received me with distrust. The morning papers had
made him man-shy; but, after a few "Your Excellencies" and a
respectful inquiry regarding "His Royal Highness," his confidence
revived. In the situation he saw nothing humorous, not even in an
announcement on the wall which read: "Sailings to Trinidad." Of
these there were _two_; on March 1, and on October 1. On the
table were many copies of the royal proclamation, the
postage-stamps of the new government, the thousand-franc bonds,
and, in pasteboard boxes, the gold and red enamelled crosses of
the Order of Trinidad.
He talked to me frankly and fondly of Prince James. Indeed, I
never met any man who knew Harden-Hickey well who did not
speak of him with aggressive loyalty. If at his eccentricities they
smiled, it was with the smile of affection. It was easy to see De la
Boissiere regarded him not only with the affection of a friend, but
with the devotion of a true subject.
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