This lively gentleman was then my companion; indeed, with that cohesive property of your true bore, he was ever beside me, relating some little interesting anecdote of a jaundice or a dropsy, a tertian or a typhus, by which agreeable souvenirs he preserved the memory of Athens or Naples, Rome or Dresden, fresh and unclouded in his mind. Not satisfied, however, with narration, like all enthusiasts he would be proselytising; and whether from the force of his arguments or the weakness of my nature, he found a ready victim in me, insomuch that under his admirable instruction I was already beginning to feel a dislike and disgust to all things edible, with an appetite only grown more ravenous, while my reverence for all springs of unsavoury taste and smell--once, I must confess, at a deplorably low ebb--was gradually becoming more developed. It was only by the accidental discovery that my waistcoat could be made to fit by putting it twice round me, and that my coat was a dependency of which I was scarcely the nucleus, that I really became frightened. ‘What!’ thought I, ‘can this be that Arthur O’Leary whom men jested on his rotundity? Is this me, around whom children ran, as they would about a pillar or a monument, and thought it exercise to circumambulate? Arthur, this will be the death of thee; thou wert a happy man and a fat before thou knewest Kochbrunnens and thermometers; run while it is yet time, and be thankful at least that thou art in racing condition.’ With noiseless step and cautious gesture, I crept downstairs one morning at daybreak. My enemy was still asleep. I heard him muttering as I passed his door; doubtless he was dreaming of some new combination of horrors, some infernal alliance of cucumbers and quinine. I passed on in silence; my very teeth chattered with fear. Happy was I to have them to chatter! another fortnight of his intimacy, and they would have trembled from blue-pill as well as panic! With a heavy sigh I paid my bill, and crossed the street towards the diligence office. One place only remained vacant--it was in the _banquette_. No matter, thought I, anywhere will do at present. ‘Where is monsieur going?--for there will be a place vacant in the _coupé_ at--’ ‘I have not thought of that yet,’ said I; ‘but when we reach Verviers we ‘ll see.’ ‘_Allons_, then,’ said the _conducteur_, while he whispered to the clerk of the office a few words I could not catch. ‘You are mistaken, friend,’ said I; ‘it’s not creditors, they are only chalybeates I ‘m running from’; and so we started. Before I follow out any further my own ramblings, I should like to acquit a debt I owe my reader--if I dare flatter myself that he cares for its discharge--by returning to the story of the poor shepherd of the mountains, and which I cannot more seasonably do than at this place; although the details I am about to relate were furnished to me a great many years after this, and during a visit I paid to Lyons in 1828.