I beseech you, before you go, from what quarter comes this
danger, that I may guard against it."

"In good truth, you give me credit for quicker perceptions than I
have any right to. How so loyal a gentleman should lie under such an
imputation I cannot even guess."

"Your sneers shall not provoke me. The fact is as I state it; and if
you will not help me to the discovery, tell me, at least, who are the
persons to whom you introduced me formerly at Beauvilliers's?"

"Very excellent company! I trust none of them have cheated you at
ecarte."

"Pray, have done with jesting, and answer me. Who is your Abbe?"

"_Ma foi_, he is the Abbe, d'Ervan. What part of France he comes from,
who are his family, friends, and resources,--are all questions I have
never thought proper to ask him; possibly because I am not so scrupulous
on the score of my acquaintances as you are. He is a very clever,
amusing, witty person; knows almost every one; has the entree into every
house in the Faubourg St. Germain; can compose a couplet and sing it;
make a mayonnaise or a madrigal better than any man I know; and, in
fact, if he were one of these days to be a minister of France, I should
not be so very much surprised as you appear this moment at my not
knowing more about him. As to the other, the Russian secretary,--or spy,
if you like the phrase better, he was unlucky enough to have one of his
couriers robbed by a party of brigands, which scandal says were sent out
for the purpose by Monsieur de Talleyrand. His secret despatches
were opened and read; and as they were found to implicate the Russian
Government in certain intrigues carrying on, the Czar had only one
course open, which was to recall the secretary and disavow his whole
proceedings. The better to evince his displeasure, I hear they have
slit his nose, and sent him to pass the winter at Tobolsk. Lastly, the
prefet. What shall I say of him, save that he was a prefet in the South,
and wants to be one again? His greatest endeavors in any cause will be
to pledge its success in Burgundy, or, if you wish, drink the downfall
of its enemy; and as to his enthusiasm, he cares a devilish deal more
for a change of weather than a change of dynasty, particularly in the
truffle season, or when the vines are ripening. Such are the truly
dangerous associates you have kept company with. It now only remains to
speak of my humble self, whose history, I need scarcely say, is far more
at your service than w