le petit souper, and the other pour le petit
jeu. You saw much ecarte and more love-making, and lost your heart and
your money with equal facility. In a word, the marquis and his jolie
petite femme were a wise and prosperous couple, who made the best of
their lives, and lived decently and honourably upon other people.

"Allons, Pelham," cried Vincent, as I was still standing at the door
in deliberation; "how much longer will you keep me to congeal in this
'eager and nipping air'--'Quamdiu nostram patientiam abutere Catilina.'"

"Let us enter," said I. "I have the run of the house, and we may find--"
"'Some young vices--some fair iniquities'" interrupted Vincent, with a
hiccup--

"'Leade on good fellowe,' quoth Robin Hood, Lead on, I do bid thee.'"

And with these words, the door opened in obedience to my rap, and we
mounted to the marquis's tenement au premiere.

The room was pretty full--the soi-disante marquise was flitting from
table to table--betting at each, and coquetting with all; and the
marquis himself, with a moist eye and a shaking hand, was affecting the
Don Juan with the various Elviras and Annas with which his salon was
crowded. Vincent was trying to follow me through the crowd, but his
confused vision and unsteady footing led him from one entanglement
to another, till he was quite unable to proceed. A tall, corpulent
Frenchman, six foot by five, was leaning, (a great and weighty
objection,) just before him, utterly occupied in the vicissitudes of an
ecarte table, and unconscious of Vincent's repeated efforts, first on
one side, and then on the other, to pass him.

At last, the perplexed wit, getting more irascible as he grew more
bewildered, suddenly seized the vast incumbrance by the arm, and said
to him in a sharp, querulous tone, "Pray, Monsieur, why are you like the
lote tree in Mahomet's Seventh Heaven?"

"Sir!" cried the astonished Frenchman.

"Because," (continued Vincent, answering his own enigma)--"because,
beyond you there is no passing!"

The Frenchman (one of that race who always forgive any thing for a bon
mot) smiled, bowed, and drew himself aside. Vincent steered by, and,
joining me, hiccuped out, "In rebus adversis opponite pectora fortia."

Meanwhile I had looked round the room for the objects of my pursuit: to
my great surprise I could not perceive them; they may be in the other
room, thought I, and to the other room I went; the supper was laid out,
and an old bonne was quietl