Note 20 — Chapter XII

Mr. Howard Vyse, the father of these young men, came to see me in Paris after I had left Bonn. He dined with us, I recollect, and we afterwards went to a theatre, and from there to various places of amusement, so that it was nearly daybreak before we reached the Hôtel Bristol, in the Place Vendôme, where he was staying, and where he insisted on my passing what remained of the night. As he offered me an exceedingly comfortable bedroom, I did not refuse. I dined a few days later with him and his wife at the “Bristol,” where they had a suite of apartments usually reserved for royal personages, which the late King Edward VII. had occupied just previously. While we were at dinner a courier came into the room to inquire if everything were satisfactory. This man’s services, it appeared, had been exclusively engaged by Mr. Howard Vyse, and he was accustomed to order dinner and settle the accounts. Mr. Howard Vyse told me that he was obliged to remain three months at the Hôtel Bristol owing to his wife’s state of health, as the doctor would not allow her to travel to Nice, where he intended spending the winter. He was a very wealthy banker from New York, and the two sons who were at Bonn with me were his only children.