"I
forgot where I was." I demurred sharply, but he would not listen.
"I didn't mind it so much in Paris and Europe, where I ain't so very
well known, but my good gosh! man, this is my home town. You'll have
to take them. People won't notice it in you so much, you being a
foreigner, anyway."
Without further objection I wearily took them, finding a desperate
drollery in being regarded as a foreigner, whereas I was simply alone
among foreigners; but I knew that Cousin Egbert lacked the subtlety to
grasp this point of view and made no effort to lay it before him. It
was clear to me then, I think, that he would forever remain socially
impossible, though perhaps no bad sort from a mere human point of
view.
We continued our stroll, turning presently from this residential
avenue to a street of small unlighted shops, and from this into a
wider and brilliantly lighted thoroughfare of larger shops, where my
companion presently began to greet native acquaintances. And now once
more he affected that fashion of presenting me to his friends that I
had so deplored in Paris. His own greeting made, he would call out
heartily: "Shake hands with my friend Colonel Ruggles!" Nor would he
heed my protests at this, so that in sheer desperation I presently
ceased making them, reflecting that after all we were encountering the
street classes of the town.
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