hat bowl; that's an invariable error in
your devisers of drink, to suppose that the tipple you start with can
please your palate to the last; they forget that as we advance, either in
years or lush, our tastes simplify."

"_Nous revenons a nos premieres amours_. Isn't that it?"

"No, not exactly, for we go even further; for if you mark the progression
of a sensible man's fluids, you'll find what an emblem of life it presents
to you. What is his initiatory glass of 'Chablis' that he throws down with
his oysters but the budding expectancy of boyhood,--the appetizing sense of
pleasure to come; then follows the sherry with his soup, that warming glow
which strength and vigor in all their consciousness impart, as a glimpse of
life is opening before him. Then youth succeeds--buoyant, wild, tempestuous
youth--foaming and sparkling like the bright champagne whose stormy surface
subsides into a myriad of bright stars."

"_Oeil de perdrix_."

"Not a bit of it; woman's own eye, brilliant, sparkling, life-giving--"

"Devil take the fellow, he's getting poetical!"

"Ah, Fred! if that could only last; but one must come to the burgundies
with his maturer years. Your first glass of hermitage is the algebraic sign
for five-and-thirty,--the glorious burst is over; the pace is still good,
to be sure, but the great enthusiasm is past. You can afford to look
forward, but confound it, you've along way to look back also."

"I say, Charley, our friend has contrived to finish the bishop during his
disquisition; the bowl's quite empty."

"You don't say so, Fred. To be sure, how a man does forget himself in
abstract speculations; but let us have a little more, I've not concluded my
homily."

"Not a glass, Maurice; it's already past nine. We are all pledged to
the masquerade, and before we've dressed and got there, 't will be late
enough."

"But I'm not disguised yet, my boy, nor half."

"Well, they must take you _au naturel_, as our countrymen do their
potatoes."

"Yes, Doctor, Fred's right; we had better start."

"Well, I can't help it; I've recorded my opposition to the motion, but I
must submit; and now that I'm on my legs, explain to me what's that very
dull-looking old lamp up there?"

"That's the moon, man; the full moon."

"Well, I've no objection; I'm full too: so come along, lads."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MASQUERADE.

To form one's impression of a masked ball from the attempts at this mode
of entertainment in