was a discretion, a certain shadowy prudery about certain portions
of my story, of which I have not attempted to convey any notion here,
but which I saw had "told" with the fair part of my audience, who,
possibly not over rigid in many of their opinions, were well pleased
with the delicate reserve in which I shrouded my direct allusion to my
parentage. A rough, red-whiskered skipper, indeed, seemed disposed to
pour a broadside into this mystery, by asking "If his Royal Highness
never took any notice of me?" but the refined taste of the company
concurred in the diplomatic refusal to answer a question of which the
"hon. gentleman on the straw chair" had given "no notice."

The pleasures of the table,--a very luscious bowl of the liquid which
bore the mysterious epithet of "Thumbo-rig," and which was a concoction
of the genus punch, spiced, sugared, and iced to a degree that concealed
its awful tendency to anti-Mathewism; bright eyes that were no churls
of their glances; merry converse; and that wondrous "magnetism of the
board" which we call good fellowship,--made the time pass rapidly.
Toasts and sentiments of every fashion went round, and we were
political, literary, arbitrary, amatory, sentimental, and satiric by
turns. They were pleasant varlets! and in their very diversity of humors
there was that clash and collision of mind and metal that tell more
effectively than the best packed party of choice wits who ever sat and
watched each other.

Then, there was a jolly jumbling up of bad English, bad Dutch, bad
French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, that would drive a sober
listener clean mad. Stories begun in one tongue merged into another;
and so into a third; while explanations, mistakes, and corrections ran
alongside of the narrative, often far more amusing than the story to
which they were attached. Personalities, too, abounded, but with a most
unqualified good temper; and, on the whole, I never beheld a merrier
set.

M. Palamede alone did not relish the scene. He himself was nobody at
such a moment, and he longed for the ballroom and the dance; and it
was only after repeated summonses of his bell that we at last arose and
entered the saloon, where we found him standing, fiddle in hand, while,
rapping smartly a couple of times with his bow, he called out,--

"Places! places! Monsieur le Duc de Gubbins, to your place. Ladies, I
beg attention. Madame la Marquise, dans la bonne societe on ne donne
jamais un souff