I did draw the line, however, at Cora Pearl and Marcus Cicero Stanley.
The Parisian courtesan was at the zenith of her extraordinary celebrity
when I became a rustic boulevardier. She could be seen everywhere and on
all occasions. Her gowns were the showiest, her equipage the smartest; her
entourage, loud though it was and vulgar, yet in its way was undeniable.
She reigned for a long time the recognized queen of the demi-monde. I
have beheld her in her glory on her throne--her two thrones, for she had
two--one on the south side of the river, the other at the east end--not to
mention the race course--surrounded by a retinue of the disreputable. She
did not awaken in me the least curiosity, and I declined many opportunities
to meet her.
Marcus Cicero Stanley was sprung from an aristocratic, even a
distinguished, North Carolina family. He came to New York and set up for a
swell. How he lived I never cared to find out, though he was believed to
be what the police call a "fence." He seemed a cross between a "con" and
a "beat." Yet for a while he flourished at Delmonico's, which he made his
headquarters, and cut a kind of dash with the unknowing. He was a handsome,
mannerly brute who knew how to dress and carry himself like a gentleman.
Later there came to New York another Southerner--a Far Southerner of a
very different quality--who attracted no little attention. This was Tom
Ochiltree. He, too, was well born, his father an eminent jurist of Texas;
he, himself, a wit, _bon homme_ and raconteur.
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