“Why, wedlock--the accursed thing! The club is in terror lest you should forget your vows. So glowing were your descriptions of your Cleopatra, that we knew not what to make. We feared everything.” “Why, Barnabas might have opened your eyes: he knew better.” “You're not married, then?” “Pshaw! no.” “Nor engaged?” The other laughed as he replied:-- “Why, on that head, the least said the better. The roving commission permits you to run up any flag that the occasion requires.” “Ah, you sly dog!--and what success?” “Come, come, Ben, you must not be so inquisitive. The game's my own, you know; and the rules of the club give me immunity from a fellow-member.” “By Gad, I'll resign! I must see this forest beauty.” “Impossible!” “Where's she? How will you prevent?” “By a very easy process. Do you know the bird that shrieks farthest from her young ones when the fowler is at hand? I'll follow her example.” “I'll follow you to the uttermost ends of the earth, Warham!” “Hush! you forget! Am I not Brother Stevens? Ha! ha! ha! You are not sufficiently reverent, brother. See you no divinity in my look and bearing? Hark you, Ben, I've been a sort of small divinity in the eyes of a whole flock for a month past!” “You pray?” “And preach!” “Ha! ha! ha!--devilish good; but I must see you in order to believe. I must, indeed, Brother Stevens. Why, man, think of it--success in this enterprise will make you head of the fraternity--you will be declared pope: but you must have witnesses!” “So I think; and hark ye, Ben”--laying a finger on the arm of the other--“I am successful!” “What! you don't say so! This queen, this princess of Egypt, Cleopatra, Altamira--eh?” “Is mine--soul and body--she is mine!” “And is what you say? Come, come, you don't mean that such a splendid woman as you describe--such a genius, poet, painter, musician--beauty too!--you don't mean to say that--” “I do, every bit of it.” “'Gad! what a fellow!--what a lucky dog! But you must let me see her, Warham!” “What! to spoil all--to blurt out the truth?--for, with every disposition to fib, you lack the ability. No, no, Ben: when the game's up--when I'm tired of the sport, and feel the necessity of looking out fresh viands--you shall then know all; I'll give the clue into your own hands, and you may follow it to your heart's content. But not now!” “But how will you get rid of me, mon ami, if my curiosity is stubborn?” “Do as the kill-deer does--travel from the nest--go home with you, rather than you should succeed in your impertinence, and have you expelled from the club for thrusting your spoon into the dish of a brother-member.” “You're a Turk, with no bowels of compassion. But, at all events, you promise me the dish when you're done with it? you give me the preference?” “I do!” “Swear by Beelzebub and Mohammed; by Jupiter Ammon and Johannes Secundus; by the ghost of Cardinal Bembo, and the gridiron of the fraternity!” “Ay, and by the virginity of Queen Elizabeth!”