If some of the company who put credence in my story did not hesitate to ascribe a strong interest in me to the Royal Duke himself, others, who put less faith in my narrative, thought less of my parentage, and more of myself; so that what I lost on one hand, I gained on the other. There was a discretion, a certain shadowy prudery about certain portions of my story, of which I have not attempted to convey any notion here, but which I saw had "told" with the fair part of my audience, who, possibly not over rigid in many of their opinions, were well pleased with the delicate reserve in which I shrouded my direct allusion to my parentage. A rough, red-whiskered skipper, indeed, seemed disposed to pour a broadside into this mystery, by asking "If his Royal Highness never took any notice of me?" but the refined taste of the company concurred in the diplomatic refusal to answer a question of which the "hon. gentleman on the straw chair" had given "no notice." The pleasures of the table,--a very luscious bowl of the liquid which bore the mysterious epithet of "Thumbo-rig," and which was a concoction of the genus punch, spiced, sugared, and iced to a degree that concealed its awful tendency to anti-Mathewism; bright eyes that were no churls of their glances; merry converse; and that wondrous "magnetism of the board" which we call good fellowship,--made the time pass rapidly. Toasts and sentiments of every fashion went round, and we were political, literary, arbitrary, amatory, sentimental, and satiric by turns. They were pleasant varlets! and in their very diversity of humors there was that clash and collision of mind and metal that tell more effectively than the best packed party of choice wits who ever sat and watched each other. Then, there was a jolly jumbling up of bad English, bad Dutch, bad French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, that would drive a sober listener clean mad. Stories begun in one tongue merged into another; and so into a third; while explanations, mistakes, and corrections ran alongside of the narrative, often far more amusing than the story to which they were attached. Personalities, too, abounded, but with a most unqualified good temper; and, on the whole, I never beheld a merrier set. M. Palamede alone did not relish the scene. He himself was nobody at such a moment, and he longed for the ballroom and the dance; and it was only after repeated summonses of his bell that we at last arose and entered the saloon, where we found him standing, fiddle in hand, while, rapping smartly a couple of times with his bow, he called out,-- "Places! places! Monsieur le Duc de Gubbins, to your place. Ladies, I beg attention. Madame la Marquise, dans la bonne société on ne donne jamais un soufflet." "Ah, here's old Rosin again!" cried several of the party, who, with all this familiarity, appeared to view him with no small respect. "Shall I find you a partner, Monsieur de Congreganne?" said he to me.