"There is not the slightest doubt," said Don Cleophas, "that we may book a place in the _Casa de los locos_ for this French signor." "I must reserve another though," replied the Demon, "for a lady who resides in a garret, next to the count's mansion. She is an elderly widow, who, from excess of affection for her children, has had the kindness to make over to them all her property; reserving only a small stipend for herself, which, with proper filial gratitude, they take good care never to pay. "I have another subject for the same establishment, in a youth of family, who no sooner has a ducat than he spends it; and who, as he cannot do without the ready, is capable of anything to obtain it. A fortnight ago, his washer-woman, to whom he owed thirty pistoles, came to dun him for that sum, stating that she wanted it particularly, as she was going to be married to a valet-de-chambre, who sought her hand. 'You must have more money than this,' said he, 'for where the devil is the valet-de-chambre who would take you to wife for thirty pistoles?' 'Oh! yes,' replied the sudorific dame, 'I have two hundred ducats besides.' 'The deuce!' replied our hero, with emotion--'two hundred ducats! You have only to give them to me, I will marry you myself, and we may then cry quits.' He was taken at his word, and the laundress became his wife. "We must retain three places also for the same number of persons, whom you see returning from supper at a celebrated countess's, and now stopping before that house on the left, where they at present reside. One is a nobleman of an inferior grade, who piques himself on his passion for the _belles lettres;_ the second is his brother, your ambassador to Timbuctoo, or some such place; and the third is their foster-brother, a literary toady who follows in their train. They are almost always together, and especially when visiting in the clique to which they belong. The noble praises himself only; the ambassador praises his brother and himself also; but the toady has three things to look after,--the praises of the other two, and the mixing of his own praises with theirs. "Two places more! One for a floricultural citizen, who, scarcely gaining his own bread, must need keep a gardener and his wife to look after a dozen plants that languish at his suburban villa; the other for an actor, who, complaining the other day to his brethren on the disagreeables inseparable from a strolling life, observed: 'Well, my friends, I am utterly disgusted with my profession; yes, so much so, that I would rather be a humble country gentleman with a thousand ducats a year.'