My principal objection to my companions in the drawer was their incessant senseless repinings about France, and their abuse of the country in which they were to pass their lives. I could see enough in America to find fault with, through the creaks of the drawer, and if an American, I might have indulged a little in the same way myself, for I am not one of those who think fault-finding belongs properly to the stranger, and not to the native. It is the proper office of the latter, as it is his duty to amend these faults; the traveler being bound in justice to look at the good as well as the evil. But, according to my companions, there was NOTHING good in America--the climate, the people, the food, the morals, the laws, the dress, the manners, and the tastes, were all infinitely worse than those they had been accustomed to. Even the physical proportions of the population were condemned, without mercy. I confess I was surprised at hearing the SIZE of the Americans sneered at by POCKET-HANDKERCHIEFS, as I remember to have read that the NOSES of the New Yorkers, in particular, were materially larger than common. When the supercilious and vapid point out faults, they ever run into contradictions and folly; it is only under the lash of the discerning and the experienced, that we betray by our writhings the power of the blow we receive. {creaks = probably a typographical error--Cooper's manuscript read "cracks"} CHAPTER IX. I might have been a fortnight in the shop, when I heard a voice as gentle and lady-like as that of Adrienne, inquiring for pocket-handkerchiefs. My heart fairly beat for joy; for, to own the truth, I was getting to be wearied to death with the garrulous folly of my companions. They had so much of the couturieres about them! not one of the whole party ever having been a regular employee in genteel life. Their niaisiries were endless, and there was just as much of the low bred anticipation as to their future purchases, as one sees at the balls of the Champs Elysee on the subject of partners. The word "pocket-handkerchief," and that so sweetly pronounced, drew open our drawer, as it might be, instinctively. Two or three dozen of us, all of exquisite fineness, were laid upon the counter, myself and two or three more of the better class being kept a little in the back ground, as a skillful general holds his best troops in reserve. {couturieres = dress makers; niaisiries = should read niaiseries, French for silliness}