CHAPTER XXIX.
Here’s a kind host, that makes the invitation, To your own cost to his fort bon collation.—Wycherly’s Gent. Dancing Master.
Vous pouvez bien juger que je n’aurai pas grande peine a me consoler d’une chose donc je me suis deja console tant de fois.—Lettres de Boileau.
As I was walking home with Vincent from the Rue Montorgueil, I saw, on entering the Rue St. Honore, two figures before us; the tall and noble stature of the one I could not for a moment mistake. They stopped at the door of an hotel, which opened in that noiseless manner so peculiar to the Conciergerie of France. I was at the porte the moment they disappeared, but not before I had caught a glance of the dark locks and pale countenance of Warburton—my eye fell upon the number of the hotel.
“Surely,” said I, “I have been in that house before.”
“Likely enough,” growled Vincent, who was gloriously drunk. “It is a house of two-fold utility—you may play with cards, or coquet with women, selon votre gout.”
At these words I remembered the hotel and its inmates immediately. It belonged to an old nobleman, who, though on the brink of the grave, was still grasping at the good things on the margin. He lived with a pretty and clever woman, who bore the name and honours of his wife. They kept up two salons, one pour 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.’”