That false Annette {165} has
cruelly abandoned me.'

'Well,' said I, 'perhaps you have yourself to thank for her having done
so; did you never treat her with coldness, and repay her marks of
affectionate interest with strange fits of eccentric humour?'

'Lord! how little you know of women,' said Francis Ardry; 'had I done as
you suppose, I should probably have possessed her at the present moment.
I treated her in a manner diametrically opposite to that. I loaded her
with presents, was always most assiduous to her, always at her feet, as I
may say, yet she nevertheless abandoned me--and for whom? I am almost
ashamed to say--for a fiddler.'

I took a glass of wine, Francis Ardry followed my example, and then
proceeded to detail to me the treatment which he had experienced from
Annette, and from what he said, it appeared that her conduct to him had
been in the highest degree reprehensible; notwithstanding he had indulged
her in everything, she was never civil to him, but loaded him continually
with taunts and insults, and had finally, on his being unable to supply
her with a sum of money which she had demanded, decamped from the
lodgings which he had taken for her, carrying with her all the presents
which at various times he had bestowed upon her, and had put herself
under the protection of a gentleman who played the bassoon at the Italian
Opera, at which place it appeared that her sister had lately been engaged
as a danseuse. My friend informed me that at first he had experienced
great agony at the ingratitude of Annette, but at last had made up his
mind to forget her, and in order more effectually to do so, had left
London with the intention of witnessing a fight, which was shortly coming
off at a town in these parts, between some dogs and a lion; {166} which
combat, he informed me, had for some time past been looked forward to
with intense eagerness by the gentlemen of the sporting world.

I commended him for his resolution, at the same time advising him not to
give up his mind entirely to dog-fighting, as he had formerly done, but,
when the present combat should be over, to return to his rhetorical
studies, and above all to marry some rich and handsome lady on the first
opportunity, as, with his person and expectations, he had only to sue for
the hand of the daughter of a marquis to be successful, telling him, with
a sigh, that all women were not Annettes, and that upon the whole there
was nothing like them. To