the same time that 'cornet of sugar-plums' may serve to warn young girls
of the perils of lingering where fancies, more charming than chastened,
come thickly from the first; on the rosy flowery unguarded slopes, where
trespasses ripen into errors full of equivocal effervescence, into too
palpitating issues. The anecdote puts La Palferine's genius before you
in all its vivacity and completeness. He realizes Pascal's _entre-deux_,
he comprehends the whole scale between tenderness and pitilessness, and,
like Epaminondas, he is equally great in extremes. And not merely so,
his epigram stamps the epoch; the _accoucheur_ is a modern innovation.
All the refinements of modern civilization are summed up in the phrase.
It is monumental."

"Look here, my dear Nathan, what farrago of nonsense is this?" asked the
Marquise in bewilderment.

"Madame la Marquise," returned Nathan, "you do not know the value of
these 'precious' phrases; I am talking Sainte-Beuve, the new kind of
French.--I resume. Walking one day arm in arm with a friend along the
boulevard, he was accosted by a ferocious creditor, who inquired:

"'Are you thinking of me, sir?'

"'Not the least in the world,' answered the Count.

"Remark the difficulty of the position. Talleyrand, in similar
circumstances, had already replied, 'You are very inquisitive, my
dear fellow!' To imitate the inimitable great man was out of the
question.--La Palferine, generous as Buckingham, could not bear to
be caught empty-handed. One day when he had nothing to give a little
Savoyard chimney-sweeper, he dipped a hand into a barrel of grapes in a
grocer's doorway and filled the child's cap from it. The little one ate
away at his grapes; the grocer began by laughing, and ended by holding
out his hand.

"'Oh, fie! monsieur,' said La Palferine, 'your left hand ought not to
know what my right hand doth.'

"With his adventurous courage, he never refuses any odds, but there is
wit in his bravado. In the Passage de l'Opera he chanced to meet a man
who had spoken slightingly of him, elbowed him as he passed, and then
turned and jostled him a second time.

"'You are very clumsy!'

"'On the contrary; I did it on purpose.'

"The young man pulled out his card. La Palferine dropped it. 'It has
been carried too long in the pocket. Be good enough to give me another.'

"On the ground he received a thrust; blood was drawn; his antagonist
wished to stop.

"'You are wounded, monsieur!'

"'I di