a! Round the dreadful circus where you fell, and whence I was
dragged corpse-like by the heels, there sat multitudes more savage than
the lions which mangled your sweet form! Ah, tenez! when we marched to
the terrible stake together at Valladolid--the Protestant and the J--
But away with memory! Boy! it was happy for thy grandam that she loved
me not.

"During that strange period," he went on, "when the teeming Time was
great with the revolution that was speedily to be born, I was on a
mission in Paris with my excellent, my maligned friend Cagliostro.
Mesmer was one of our band. I seemed to occupy but an obscure rank in
it: though, as you know, in secret societies the humble man may be a
chief and director--the ostensible leader but a puppet moved by unseen
hands. Never mind who was chief, or who was second. Never mind my age.
It boots not to tell it: why shall I expose myself to your scornful
incredulity--or reply to your questions in words that are familiar to
you, but which yet you cannot understand? Words are symbols of things
which you know, or of things which you don't know. If you don't know
them, to speak is idle." (Here I confess Mr. P. spoke for exactly
thirty-eight minutes, about physics, metaphysics, language, the origin
and destiny of man, during which time I was rather bored, and, to
relieve my ennui, drank a half glass or so of wine.) "LOVE, friend, is
the fountain of youth! It may not happen to me once--once in an age:
but when I love, then I am young. I loved when I was in Paris. Bathilde,
Bathilde, I loved thee--ah, how fondly! Wine, I say, more wine! Love is
ever young. I was a boy at the little feet of Bathilde de Bechamel--the
fair, the fond, the fickle, ah, the false!" The strange old man's agony
was here really terrific, and he showed himself much more agitated than
he had been when speaking about my gr-ndm-th-r.

"I thought Blanche might love me. I could speak to her in the language
of all countries, and tell her the lore of all ages. I could trace the
nursery legends which she loved up to their Sanscrit source, and whisper
to her the darkling mysteries of Egyptian Magi. I could chant for her
the wild chorus that rang in the dishevelled Eleusinian revel: I could
tell her and I would, the watchword never known but to one woman, the
Saban Queen, which Hiram breathed in the abysmal ear of Solomon--You
don't attend. Psha! you have drunk too much wine!" Perhaps I may as
well own that I was NOT attend