day besides. The credit of this belonged entirely
to the Church. Although I was no friend to that
Catholic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And
often, in spite of me, I found myself saying, "What
would this country be without the Church?"

After prayers we had dinner in a great banqueting-
hall which was lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and
everything was as fine and lavish and rudely splendid
as might become the royal degree of the hosts. At
the head of the hall, on a dais, was the table of the
king, queen, and their son, Prince Uwaine. Stretch-
ing down the hall from this, was the general table,
on the floor. At this, above the salt, sat the visiting
nobles and the grown members of their families, of
both sexes--the resident Court, in effect--sixty-one
persons; below the salt sat minor officers of the
household, with their principal subordinates: alto-
gether a hundred and eighteen persons sitting, and
about as many liveried servants standing behind
their chairs, or serving in one capacity or another.
It was a very fine show. In a gallery a band with
cymbals, horns, harps, and other horrors, opened
the proceedings with what seemed to be the crude
first-draft or original agony of the wail known to
later centuries as "In the Sweet Bye and Bye."
It was new, and ought to have been rehearsed a little
more. For some reason or other the queen had the
composer hanged, after dinner.

After this music, the priest who stood behind the
royal table said a noble long grace in ostensible
Latin. Then the battalion of waiters broke away
from their posts, and darted, rushed, flew, fetched

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