"And then my trousers..."

"Unreasonable Juvenile, what of the trousers?"

"They are so tight that I dare not sit down in them."

"Barbarian! Michaud's customers never sit down in society."

"And my boots are so small that I can hardly endure them."

"Very becoming to the foot," said Dalyrmple, with exasperating
indifference.

"And my collar is so stiff that it almost cuts my throat."

"Makes you hold your head up," said Dalrymple, "and leaves you no
inducement to commit suicide."

I could not help laughing, despite my discomfort.

"Job himself never had such a comforter!" I exclaimed.

"It would be a downright pleasure to quarrel with you."

"Put on your hat instead, and let us delay no longer," replied my
friend. "My cab is waiting."

So we went down, and in another moment were driving through the lighted
streets. I should hardly have chosen to confess how my heart beat when,
on turning an angle of the Rue Trudon, our cab fell into the rear of
three or four other carriages, passed into a courtyard crowded with
arriving and departing vehicles, and drew up before an open door, whence
a broad stream of light flowed out to meet us. A couple of footmen
received us in a hall lighted by torches and decorated with stands of
antique armor. From the centre of this hall sprang a Gothic staircase,
so light, so richly sculptured, so full of niches and statues, slender
columns, foliated capitals, and delicate ornamentation of every kind,
that it looked a very blossoming of the stone. Following Dalrymple up
this superb staircase and through a vestibule of carved oak, I next
found myself in a room that might have been the scene of Plato's
symposium. Here were walls painted in classic fresco; windows curtained
with draperies of chocolate and amber; chairs and couches of ebony,
carved in antique fashion; Etruscan amphorae; vases and paterae of
terracotta; exquisite lamps, statuettes and candelabra in rare green
bronze; and curious parti-colored busts of philosophers and heroes, in
all kinds of variegated marbles. Powdered footmen serving modern coffee
seemed here like anachronisms in livery. In such a room one should have
been waited on by boys crowned with roses, and have partaken only of
classic dishes--of Venafran olives or oysters from the Lucrine lake,
washed down with Massic, or Chian, or honeyed Falernian.

Some half-dozen gentlemen, chatting over their coffee, bowed to
Dalrymple when we came in. They were talking