"Handsome?"
"Beyond any I have ever seen, beautiful!"
"Whew! even beyond la belle--"
"There, don't mention her at present, please," said I, with a little irritation, which only made him laugh the more.
"If you were love-making at Yalta, with three lance-prods in you, there was no malingering anyhow."
"I should think not."
"And so she was engaged to be married to that Russian bear, Tolstoff," he added, after I had told him the whole of my affair with Valerie.
"Yes," said I, with an unmistakable sigh.
"I think we are both destined to live and die bachelors," he resumed, in a bantering way; for though Phil had in these matters undergone, at Craigaderyn and elsewhere, "the baptism of fire" himself, he was not the less inclined to laugh at me; for of all sorrows, those of love alone excite the risible propensities.
"And so, Phil, the world's a kaleidoscope--always shifting."