"Impossible; unless the affair at the saloon has induced you to take this disguise, I cannot conceive the reason."
"Nothing farther from it, my dear friend; much worse than that."
"Out with it, then, at once."
"She's come—she's here—in this very house—No. 29, above the entre sol."
"Who is here, in No. 29, above the entre sol?"
"Who, but Mrs. O'Leary herself. I was near saying bad luck to her."
"And does she know you are here?"
"That is what I can't exactly say," said he, "but she has had the Livre des Voyageurs brought up to her room, and has been making rather unpleasant inquiries for the proprietor of certain hieroglyphics beginning with O, which have given me great alarm—the more, as all the waiters have been sent for in turn, and subjected to long examination by her. So I have lost no time, but, under the auspices of your friend Trevanion, have become the fascinating figure you find me, and am now Compte O'Lieuki, a Pole of noble family, banished by the Russian government, with a father in Siberia, and all that; and I hope, by the end of the week, to be able to cheat at ecarte, and deceive the very police itself."
The idea of O'Leary's assuming such a metamorphosis was too absurd not to throw me into a hearty fit of laughing, in which the worthy emigre indulged also.
"But why not leave this at once," said I, "if you are so much in dread of a recognition?"