The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-01-26

81 won't stop in town." said ! to my
self, ''to be chaffed by all the fellows at
the club and in the masters room at
st. Martin $. I'll run over on the Con-
tinent until the wags (confound them)
have forgotten all about it. I'm asensi-
tive man. and if there's anything on
earth | hate it's cheap. and easy joking
and punning on a name or personal
popularity which lays itself open obvi-
ously to stupid buff;oonery. OF course
| shall chuck up the schoolmastering
nOw;-it S an odious trade at any time
and l may as well take a pleasant
holiday while I'm about it. Let me see
Nice or Cannes or Florence would be
the best thing at this time of year. Es-
cape the November togs and January
frosts. Let's make it Cannes, then,
and try the first effect of my new name
upon the corpus cjle of the Cannois."
So [ packed up my portmanteau hur-
riedly, took the 7:45 to Paris, and that
same evening found myself comforta-
bly, ensconced in a ragon lit, making
my way as fast as the Lyons line would
carry me, en- route for the blue Medi-
terranean. The Hotel du Paradis at
Cannes is a verypleasant and well man.
aged place, where | succeeded in MAX
ing myself perfectly at home. | gave
my full name to the concierge boldly.
''Thank Heaven" | thought, "Aikin
Payne will sound to her Just as good a
label to ones back as Howard or Chol-
mondely. She won't see the absurdity
of the combination. She was fat
Vaudoise Swiss by origin, and she took
it without moving muscle. But she
answered me in very tolerable English,
me, who thought my Partisan accent
unimpeachable Vary WELL, SIR,
your lettares shall be sent to your
apartments. | saw there was the
faintest twinkle of smile about the
corner of her mouth, and | felt that
even she, a mere foreigner, Swiss
concierge, perceived at once the incon-
gruity of the two surnames. Incongrui-
ty! that's the worst of it !! Would that
they were homogeneous But Its their
fatal and obvious congruity with one
another that makes their juXtaposition
so ridiculous. Call man Payne, and
Iventure to say, though | was to the
manner born, and it's me that says it as
oughtn't to say it, you couldn't find a
neater or more respectable surname in
all England; call him plain Akin,
and though that perhaps is
less aristocratic, it's redeemed
by all the associations of child
hood with the earliest literature
we imbibed through the innocuous
pages of Evenings at Homer" but Join
the two together, in the order of alpha
betical precedence, and you get anAikin-
Payne, which is a thing to make a SEN
sitive man, compelled TO bear it for a
lifetime. turn permanently red like a
boiled lobster. My uncle must have
done it on purpose, in order to inHict a
deadly blow on what ne would doubt
less have called my COMPOUNDED self
conceit!
However, changed my tourist suit
for black cutaway and made my way
down to the SGiie-0-n1dnger The din
ner was good in itself and was emily
ened for me by the presence of an ex-
tremely pretty girl of, say nineteen,
who sat just opposite, and whose
natural protector | soon managed to
draw casually into general CONVEX
sation. | say her natural protector, be-
cause though | took him at the time for
her father, | discovered afterwards that
he was really her uncle. Experience
has taught me that when you sit oppo-
site pretty girl at an hotel, you ought
not to open fire by directing your OBJ
seryations to herself in person; you
should begin automatically by gaining
the confidence of her male relations
through the wisdom or the or
thodoxy of your political and social
opinions. Mr. Shackleford-that |
found afterwards, was the uncle's name