Benevolo grasped his hand. “You are a noble fellow!” cried he; “and now, as a last favor, you must tell me your name. You act under an assumed one, I suppose?”
“Not at all; the same——Lablache.”
“Lablache! are you, then, a Frenchman?”
“My father was one; he fled from Marseilles at the time of the Revolution; but I was born in Naples. Does that satisfy you?”
“I always took you for a nobleman in disguise,” said Benevolo; “but now I know you for one of the nobility of artists.”
“That is better than the first,” said Lablache; “and now you must come home and sup with me, in the Rue Richelieu. I shall have a few friends there, and la belle Rosina will honor us.”
Mᶜ Rae, sc.
FRANCIS LISZT.