"My story won't be long," he said; "I rush my love affairs through on time; I don't like to have things drag along. I was in love with a woman who wasn't handsome, but had a fine figure; and I'm a great fellow for shape; I tell you, I set store by shape! To speak without periphrasis, I prefer what's underneath to what's outside. Well! I was making love to a lady who had little to boast of in the way of features; but such a superb bust! such well-rounded hips! I said to myself: 'If all that's only as firm and hard as a plum pudding, it will be all right; for, after all, one can't expect to find marble unless he goes to a statue.'--I would have been glad to have a chance to appraise, by means of a slight caress, more or less innocent, the real value of what I admired, but my inamorata didn't understand that sort of play; as soon as I made a motion to touch her, she'd shriek and wriggle and scratch. 'I shall never triumph over such untamed virtue as this,' I said to myself. But one fine day--that is to say, one evening, she agreed to meet me. She gave me leave to call between ten and eleven. I took good care to be prompt. Madame lived alone. She opened the door herself, and admitted me; but I was surprised to find that she had no light. I presumed that it was simply excess of modesty, and that defeat in the dark would be less trying to her; I had the more reason to think so, because she offered only a slight resistance. I began to grow audacious, but fancy my disappointment; instead of what I had hoped to find, I found nothing but _cliquettes_--that is to say, bones, of different degrees of sharpness. My audacity gave place to alarm; I recalled the romance of the _Monk_, and the story of _La Nonne Sanglante_; I began to be afraid that I was alone with a skeleton. But I had in my pocket one of those devices which we smokers use to obtain a light. I lighted it, without warning my fair; she shrieked when she saw the flame, and I did the same when I found that I was tête-à-tête with a beanpole. All I had admired was false. I alleged a sudden indisposition, and fled. Since then, whenever that lady meets me, she glares at me as if she would strike me dead. I am very sorry for her, but one shouldn't pretend to be a millionaire when one doesn't own a single foot of ground." It was my turn to relate my adventures. I have had amusing ones and sad ones; but, presuming that the sentimental sort would be misplaced on that occasion, I determined on this: