Everybody looked at Martin. There was no help for it. The truth must
out.
'I came over in the same ship as the general,' said Martin, 'but not in
the same cabin. It being necessary for me to observe strict economy, I
took my passage in the steerage.'
If the general had been carried up bodily to a loaded cannon, and
required to let it off that moment, he could not have been in a state
of greater consternation than when he heard these words. He,
Fladdock--Fladdock in full militia uniform, Fladdock the General,
Fladdock, the caressed of foreign noblemen--expected to know a fellow
who had come over in the steerage of line-of-packet ship, at the cost
of four pound ten! And meeting that fellow in the very sanctuary of New
York fashion, and nestling in the bosom of the New York aristocracy! He
almost laid his hand upon his sword.
A death-like stillness fell upon the Norisses. If this story should get
wind, their country relation had, by his imprudence, for ever disgraced
them. They were the bright particular stars of an exalted New York
sphere. There were other fashionable spheres above them, and other
fashionable spheres below, and none of the stars in any one of these
spheres had anything to say to the stars in any other of these spheres.
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