“Bon soir. I wish you a good-night—pleasant dreams, too, if that be possible.”
“Don't go. Sit down. The dawn is just breaking, and you know I ordered the horses for the first light.”
“I must go into the air then. I must go where I can breathe.”
“Take a cigar, and let us talk of something else.”
“That is easy enough for you; you who treat everything as a mere passing incident, and would make life a series of unconnected episodes. You turn from this to that, just as you taste of this dish and that at dinner; but I, who want to live a life—entends-tu?—to live a life: to be to-morrow the successor of myself to-day, to carry with me an identity—how am I to practise your philosophy?”
“Here come the horses; and I must say I am for once grateful to their jingling bells, helping as they do to drown more nonsense than even you usually give way to.”
“How did we ever become friends? Can you explain that to me?”
“I suppose it must have been in one of your lucid moments, Anatole—for you have them at times.”
“Ah, I have! But if you 're getting complimentary, I 'd better be off. Will you look to the bill? And I'll take charge of the baggage.”