There was one Austrian colonel who came one night into a cafe in Vienna where we were and sat down at the table next to us; and he put our eyes right out and made all the lights dim and flickery.  His epaulets were two hairbrushes of augmented size, gold-mounted; his Plimsoll marks were outlined in bullion, and along his garboard strake ran lines of gold braid; but strangest of all to observe was the locality where he wore what appeared to be his service stripes.  Instead of being on his sleeves they were at the extreme southern exposure of his coattails; I presume an Austrian officer acquires merit by sitting down.

This particular officer’s saber kept jingling, and so did his spurs, and so did his bracelet.  I almost forgot the bracelet.  It was an ornate affair of gold links fastened on his left wrist with a big gold locket, and it kept slipping down over his hand and rattling against his cuff.  The chain bracelet locked on the left wrist is very common among Austrian officers; it adds just the final needed touch.  I did not see any of them carrying lorgnettes or shower bouquets, but I think, in summer they wear veils.

One opportunity is afforded the European who is neither a soldier nor a hotel cashier to dress himself up in comic-opera clothes —­and that is when he a-hunting goes.  An American going hunting puts on his oldest and most serviceable clothes—­a European his giddiest, gayest, gladdest regalia.  We were so favored by gracious circumstances as to behold several Englishmen suitably attired for the chase, and we noted that the conventional morning costume of an English gentleman expecting to call informally on a pheasant or something during the course of the forenoon consisted, in the main, of a perfect dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over plaits and pockets, with large leather buttons like oak-galls adhering thickly to it, with a belt high up under the arms and a saucy tail sticking out behind; knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high leggings of buff or white, and a special hat—­a truly adorable confection by the world’s leading he-milliner.

If you dared to wear such an outfit afield in America the very dickeybirds would fall into fits as you passed—­the chipmunks would lean out of the trees and just naturally laugh you to death!  But in a land where the woodlands are well-kept groves, and the undergrowth, instead of being weedy and briery, is sweet-scented fern and gorse and bracken, I suppose it is all eminently correct.

Thus appareled the Englishman goes to Scotland to shoot the grouse, the gillie, the heather cock, the niblick, the haggis and other Scotch game.  Thus appareled he ranges the preserves of his own fat, fair shires in ardent pursuit of the English rabbit, which pretty nearly corresponds to the guinea pig, but is not so ferocious; and the English hare, which is first cousin to our molly cottontail; and the English pheasant—­but particularly the pheasant.