"Madame, an exile is always triste: I think of my pauvre pays."
"Bah!" cried Mr. Love. "Think that there is no exile by the side of a belle dame."
The Pole smiled mournfully.
"Pull it," said Madame Beavor, holding a cracker to the patriot, and turning away her face.
"Yes, madame; I wish it were a cannon in defence of La Pologne."
With this magniloquent aspiration, the gallant Sovolofski pulled lustily, and then rubbed his fingers, with a little grimace, observing that crackers were sometimes dangerous, and that the present combustible was d'une force immense.
"Helas! J'ai cru jusqu'a ce jour
Pouvoir triompher de l'amour,"
[Alas! I believed until to-day that I could triumph over love.]
said Madame Beavor, reading the motto. "What do you say to that?"
"Madame, there is no triumph for La Pologne!" Madame Beavor uttered a little peevish exclamation, and glanced in despair at her red-headed countryman. "Are you, too, a great politician, sir?" said she in English.