ncourt, I am appalled to hear you perpetrate a pun! By
the way, you have met Mr. Basil Arbuthnot at my rooms?"

M. de Simoncourt lifted his hat, and was graciously pleased to remember
the circumstance.

"And now," pursued Dalrymple, "having met, what shall, we do next? Have
you any engagement for the small hours, De Simoncourt?"

"I am quite at your disposal. Where were your bound for?"

"Anywhere--everywhere. I want excitement."

"Would a hand at _ecarte_, or a green table, have any attraction for
you?" suggested De Simoncourt, falling into the trap as readily as one
could have desired.

"The very thing, if you know where they are to be found!"

"Nay, I need not take you far to find both. There is in this very street
a house where money may be lost and won as easily as at the Bourse.
Follow me."

He took us to the white house at the corner, and, pressing a spring
concealed in the wood-work of the lintel, rung a bell of shrill and
peculiar _timbre_. The door opened immediately, and, after we had
passed in, closed behind us without any visible agency. Still following
at the heels of M. de Simoncourt, we then went up a spacious staircase
dimly lighted, and, leaving our hats in an ante-room, entered
unannounced into an elegant _salon_, where some twenty or thirty
_habitues_ of both sexes had already commenced the business of the
evening. The ladies, of whom there were not more than half-a-dozen, were
all more or less painted, _passees_, and showily dressed. Among the men
were military stocks, ribbons, crosses, stars, and fine titles in
abundance. We were evidently supposed to be in very brilliant
society--brilliant, however, with a fictitious lustre that betrayed the
tinsel beneath, and reminded one of a fashionable reception on the
boards of the Haymarket or the Porte St. Martin. The mistress of the
house, an abundant and somewhat elderly Juno in green velvet, with a
profusion of jewelry on her arms and bosom, came forward to receive us.

"Madame de Sainte Amaranthe, permit me to present my friends, Major
Dalrymple and Mr. Arbuthnot," said De Simoncourt, imprinting a gallant
kiss on the plump hand of the hostess.

Madame de Ste. Amaranthe professed herself charmed to receive any
friends of M. de Simoncourt; whereupon M. de Simoncourt's friends were
enchanted to be admitted to the privilege of Madame de Ste. Amaranthe's
acquaintance. Madame de Ste. Amaranthe then informed us that she was the
widow of a general