"Only conceive what the strange fellow is about," said the young officer. "He has not danced once since he has been in the saloon. Directly he entered he fell in with his friend Anderson, who, it seems, has just come back from his travels. Their conversation fell upon literature; and as Anderson did not know the new poem which has just come out, nothing would satisfy Mr. Roderick but that they must shut themselves up in one of the back rooms; and there he is now with a single candle reading the whole production aloud to him."
"That is so like him," answered Emilius. "He is made up of whims and fancies. I have done all I could—I have even risked one or two friendly quarrels—to cure him of this way of living so altogether extempore, gambling away his existence in impromptus; but these follies are so grown into his heart, that he would sooner lose his dearest friend than part with them. This book you speak of he professes to be passionately fond of, and always has it about with him. The other day I asked him to read it to me, and he began to do so. We had scarcely got beyond the opening, and I had begun to enter into the beauties of it, when suddenly he jumped up, ran out of the room, and presently came back with the cook's apron on, made a prodigious fuss to light a fire, and all to do me a beef-steak, for which I had not the slightest inclination, and which, though he fancies he does them better than any one in Europe, few people that have tried once are very anxious to attempt a second time."
The Spaniard laughed. "Has he never been in love?" he asked.
"After his fashion," said Emilius bitterly; "as if he wanted to make a fool of himself and turn love into ridicule; with a dozen women at once, and, if you believe what he says, to desperation. In a week he has forgotten them all."
They were parted by the crowd, and Emilius went off to the room the Spaniard had pointed out to him, where he heard his friend's voice declaiming long before he reached it.
"Ah! there you are, are you!" Roderick cried to him; "you are come in the very nick of time; we are just at the place you and I left off at the other day; so sit down and listen."
"I am not in the mood at present," said Emilius; "neither do place and time seem the best adapted for the purpose."
"And why not, pray?" answered Roderick. "It is all in ourselves. Every time is the right time to employ oneself in a proper way. Or perhaps you want to dance? They want men; and at the expense of an hour or two skipping about, and a pair of tired legs, you may make half a dozen grateful young damsels fall in love with you."
Emilius was already at the door: "Good night," he said; "I am going home."
"Stay one moment," called Roderick after him; "I am going away early to-morrow morning into the country with this gentleman. I will look in upon you before I go, to say good-by; but if you are asleep, don't trouble yourself to wake, as I shall be back again in two or three days.—That is the strangest fellow," he said, turning to his new friend; "so solemn, so serious and soberminded, he is a regular kill-joy; or rather, he does not know what joy means. Every thing must be lofty, ideal, exalted, for him. His heart must take a part, even if it be a puppetshow he is looking at; and when things do not come up to his notions, as of course most things can't, then he gets upon stilts, turns tragical, and the whole world is going to the devil. Under every clown's and pantaloon's mask he looks for a heart overflowing with longings and supernatural impulses; harlequins must philosophise on the nothingness of human wishes: and if these expectations are not exactly realised, tears start into his eyes, and he turns his back on the pretty show in a fever of scorn and indignation."