's faces, and burst out into fits of
extravagant laughter.

"Oh, Lord!' cried the waiter, starting back a couple of paces, 'they're
all off their heads!'

"Alexander calmed him by paying for the coffee, and, when he had gone,
Severin began:

"'What I was just going to say, we have all represented in pantomime;
and the denouement, with the "moral" of the story as well, were
expressed by that hearty burst of laughter of ours. This day two years
ago, we all fell into a condition of the most egregious folly; we're
ashamed of it now, and completely cured.'

"'The fact was,' said Marzell, 'that that exquisitely beautiful
creature turned all our heads to a frightful extent.'

"'Exquisitely beautiful!' said Alexander; 'exquisitely beautiful,
indeed! But,' he continued, with a little dash of anxiety in his tone,
'you say, Marzell, that we are all quite cured of our folly--_id est_,
of our having lost our hearts to that girl whom we none of us knew
anything about. Now let me ask you one thing. If she were to come back
here again to-day, and sit down in her old place, shouldn't we fall
back into the old folly again, just as we did before?'

"'For my part,' said Severin, 'I'm quite certain, beyond the
possibility of any mistake about it, that I am most thoroughly cured of
it.'

"'And so am I," said Marzell, quite as unmistakeably. Nobody was ever
made such a thorough ass of as I was, when I came to a closer
acquaintance with that incomparable lady.'

"'"Closer acquaintance?--incomparable lady?"' interrupted Alexander
eagerly.

"'Well, yes,' said Marzell; 'it's impossible to deny the fact that that
adventure of ours here, which I might almost call a novelette in one
volume, was followed in my case by a regular screaming farce.'

"'My luck was no better,' said Severin. 'Only, if your novelette was in
one volume, and your farce in one act, all I played in was a little
duodecimo sheet, and a single scene.'

"During this, Alexander's face had got red as fire; the perspiration
stood on his forehead; his breath came short and quick, he ran his
hands through his curly hair; in short, he showed every symptom of the
greatest excitement, and was so clearly unable to retain any control
over himself that Marzell cried:

"What on earth's the matter with you, my dear fellow? What are you
getting into such a state of mind about?'

"He's simply over head and ears in love still with the lady whom we've
given up,' said Severin, laug