he observed, as he lighted a fresh cigar--

"When I was last in this room I was in company with a very strange
personage."

"Male or female?" inquired I.

"Female," replied Colonel G----. "Altogether it's a story worth telling,
and as it will pass away the time, I will relate it you--unless you wish
to retire."

As I satisfied him that I was not anxious to go to bed, and very anxious
to hear his story, he narrated it as near as I can recollect in the
following words:--

"I had taken my place in the diligence from Paris, and when I arrived at
_Notre Dame des Victoires_ it was all ready for a start; the luggage,
piled up as high as an English haystack, had been covered over and
buckled down, and the _conducteur_ was calling out for the passengers. I
took my last hasty whiff of my cigar, and unwillingly threw away more
than half of a really good Havannah; for I perceived that in the
_interieur_, for which I had booked myself, there was one female already
seated: and women and cigars are such great luxuries in their respective
ways, that they are not to be indulged in at one and the same time--the
world would be too happy, and happiness, we are told, is not for us
here below. Not that I agree with that moral, although it comes from
very high authority;--there is a great deal of happiness in this world,
if you knew how to extract it; or rather, I should say, of pleasure:
there is a pleasure in doing good; there is a pleasure, unfortunately,
in doing wrong; there is a pleasure in looking forward, ay, and in
looking backward also; there is pleasure in loving and being loved, in
eating, in drinking, and though last, not least, in smoking. I do not
mean to say that there are not the drawbacks of pain, regret, and even
remorse; but there is a sort of pleasure even in them: it is pleasant to
repent, because you know that you are doing your duty; and if there is
no great pleasure in pain, it precedes an excess when it has left you. I
say again, that, if you know how to extract it, there is a great deal of
pleasure and of happiness in this world, especially if you have, as I
have, a very bad memory.

"'_Allons, Messieurs!_' said the _conducteur_; and when I got in I found
myself the sixth person, and opposite to the lady; for all the other
passengers were of my own sex. Having fixed our hats up to the roof,
wriggled and twisted a little so as to get rid of coat-tails, etc., all
of which was effected previous to our having cl