cally that splendid
run of luck which had set in at Baden with Clive's loan: his winnings,
at that fortunate period, had carried him through the winter with
considerable brilliancy, but bouillotte and Mademoiselle Atala, of the
Varietes (une ogresse, mon cher, who devours thirty of our young men
every year in her cavern, in the Rue de Breda), had declared against
him, and the poor Vicomte's pockets were almost empty when he came to
London.

He was amiably communicative regarding himself, and told us his virtues
and his faults (if indeed a passion for play and for women could be
considered as faults in a gay young fellow of two or three and forty),
with a like engaging frankness. He would weep in describing his angel
mother: he would fly off again into tirades respecting the wickedness,
the wit, the extravagance, the charms of the young lady of the Varietes.
He would then (in conversation) introduce us to Madame de Florac, nee
Higg, of Manchesterre. His prattle was incessant, and to my friend Mr.
Warrington especially he was an object of endless delight and amusement
and wonder. He would roll and smoke countless paper cigars, talking
unrestrainedly when we were not busy, silent when we were engaged;
he would only rarely partake of our meals, and altogether refused
all offers of pecuniary aid. He disappeared at dinner-time into the
mysterious purlieus of Leicester Square, and dark ordinaries only
frequented by Frenchmen. As we walked with him in the Regent Street
precincts, he would exchange marks of recognition with many dusky
personages, smoking bravos; and whiskered refugees of his nation.

"That gentleman," he would say, "who has done me the honour to salute
me, is a coiffeur of the most celebrated; he forms the deuces of our
table-d'hote. 'Bon jour, mon cher monsieur!' We are friends, though not
of the same opinion. Monsieur is a republican of the most distinguished;
conspirator of profession, and at this time engaged in constructing an
infernal machine to the address of His Majesty, Louis Philippe, King
of the French." "Who is my friend with the scarlet beard and the white
paletot? My good Warrington! you do not move in the world; you make
yourself a hermit, my dear! Not know monsieur!--monsieur is secretary
to Mademoiselle Caracoline, the lovely rider at the circus of Astley;
I shall be charmed to introduce you to this amiable society some day at
our table-d'hote."

Warrington vowed that the company of Florac's