"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.'"
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.