"I will tell you that I have no objection to sbeak wis you, _privately_ in Paris, whenever you are zere--now, now! zat is all. I will not have one ozer word--you shall not stay one ozer minude." He opens the door and wags his head peremptorily, and points with his pipe to the lobby. "You'll not forget your promise, Baron, when I call? for visit you I will." "I never forget nosing. Monsieur Arden, will you go or _nod_?" "Farewell, Sir," says his visitor, too much excited by the promise opened to him, for the moment to apprehend what was ridiculous in the scene or in the brutality of the baron. CHAPTER LIX. TWO OLD FRIENDS MEET AND PART. When he was gone the Baron Vanboeren sat down and panted; his pipe had gone out, and he clutched it in his hand like a weapon and continued for some minutes, in the good old phrase, very much disordered. "That old fool," he mutters, in his native German, "won't come near me again while I remain in London." This assurance was, I suppose, consolatory, for the baron repeated it several times; and then bounced to his feet, and made a few hurried preparations for an appearance in the streets. He put on a short cloak which had served him for the last thirty years, and a preposterous hat; and with a thick stick in his hand, and a cigar lighted, sallied forth, square and short, to make Mr. Longcluse a visit by appointment. By this time the lamps were lighted. There had been a performance of _Saul_, a very brilliant success, although it pleased the baron to grumble over it that day. He had not returned from the great room where it had taken place more than an hour, when David Arden had paid his brief visit. He was now hastening to an interview which he thought much more momentous. Few persons who looked at that vulgar seedy figure, strutting through the mud, would have thought that the thread-bare black cloak, over which a brown autumnal tint had spread, and the monstrous battered felt hat, in which a costermonger would scarcely have gone abroad, covered a man worth a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Man is mysteriously so constructed that he cannot abandon himself to selfishness, which is the very reverse of heavenly love, without in the end contracting some incurable insanity; and that insanity of the higher man constitutes, to a great extent, his mental death. The Baron Vanboeren's insanity was avarice; and his solitary expenses caused him all the sordid anxieties which haunt the unfortunate gentleman who must make both ends meet on five-and-thirty pounds a year. Though not _sui profusus_, he was _alieni appetens_ in a very high degree; and his visit to Mr. Longcluse was not one of mere affection. Mr. Longcluse was at home in his study. The baron was instantly shown in. Mr. Longcluse, smiling, with both hands extended to grasp his, advances to meet him.