All this time I was talking to Lord Falmouth, and I remember that our conversation was principally about a remark he had made me, and to which I assented, on the subject of the rococo style of luxury, almost feminine indeed, that many young men had begun to use in the interior decoration of their apartments. He laughed very heartily to think that all these mirrors, framed in gold and surrounded by cupids, doves, and garlands of flowers, would nevermore reflect any but masculine faces, looking innocently out from clouds of cigar smoke. While, by way of contrast, instead of making use of all this magnificence, instead of doubling the charm by surrounding it with mysterious luxury, instead of exposing all these beautiful creations of art to the vulgar gaze, if one of these young beaux had to wait, with amorous impatience, for one of those sweet and secret apparitions that deserve to be surrounded with all that is beautiful and luxurious, it is generally way off in some dirty part of the city, in some mean and out-of-the-way hole, that are passed those rare and enchanting hours, which stand out in glowing colours among the other pale souvenirs of our lives. We concluded, then, with this aphorism, that for a man of tact, of taste, and of experience, the known and visible dwelling should be all that is comfortable and severely simple; but the unknown and invisible abode, the hidden diamond of our lives, should be a triumph of luxury, and all that was dazzlingly beautiful and rare. After breakfast we went into the smoking-room (the universal use of tobacco makes this sort of subdivision of an apartment necessary), which was furnished with large armchairs and broad divans. It was ornamented with an admirable collection of pipes and tobacco of all kinds, from the East Indian hookah, glittering with gold and precious stones, to the vulgar clay pipe, the _brûle-gueule_ of the Parisian workman; from the brown and perfumed leaf of the l'Atakia or Havana, with its pale amber shade, to the strong and black tobacco, called Régia, whose pungent and corrosive savour some palates are depraved enough to like. There was to be that day a race of gentleman-riders in the Bois de Boulogne; M. de Cernay was one of the judges, and invited me to go. He was to take his lion, Ismaël, in his phaëton. M. du Pluvier made me shudder by offering me a seat in his mountebank's chariot, but I escaped this man-trap, for I had fortunately ordered my cabriolet to wait for me. Then M. du Pluvier fell upon Lord Falmouth, who replied with his usual _sang-froid_, "I am sorry not to be able to accept, my dear M. du Pluvier, but I have to start immediately for the House of Parliament." "To the House of Peers? Very well, I can take you there. What difference does it make? My horses are made for that."