“No,” replied M. de Nozay; “he is a traveller.”
“Ah! ah!” exclaimed Lectoure, with an accent which announced that the newly arrived personage was to be the subject of a new attack. He had hardly made the ejaculation, when the person announced entered the room, muffled up in a Polish dress, lined with fur.
“Ah! my dear La Jarry,” cried Emanuel, advancing to meet him, and holding out his hand to him, “but how you are be-furred! Upon my honor, you look like the Czar Peter.”
“It is,” replied La Jarry, shivering, although the weather was by no means cold, “because, when one arrives from Naples—perrrrrou!”
“Ah! the gentleman has arrived from Naples,” said Lectoure, joining in the conversation.
“Direct, sir.”
“Did you ascend Vesuvius, sir?”
“No. I was satisfied with looking at it from my window. And then,” continued the traveller, with a tone of contempt, most humiliating to the volcano, “Vesuvius is not the most curious thing that is to be seen at Naples. A mountain that smokes? my chimney does as much, when the wind is in the wrong quarter,—and besides Madame La Jarry was dreadfully alarmed at the idea of an eruption.”
“But of course you visited the Grotto del Cane?” continued Lectoure.
“To what purpose?” rejoined La Jarry; “to see an animal that has vapors—give a pill to the first poodle that passes, and he will do as much. And then, Madame La Jarry has quite a passion for dogs, and it would have given her pain to witness so cruel an exhibition.”