"Ay, anything for a quiet life,--even champagne," said Saville, with a mock air of patience, and dropping his sharp features into a state of the most placid repose. "Your wits are so very severe. Yes, champagne if you please. Fanny, my love," and Saville made a wry face as he put down the scarce-tasted glass; "go on--another joke, if you please; I now find I can bear your satire better, at least, than your wine." Fanny was all bustle: it is in these things that the actress differs from the lady--there is no quiet in her. "Another bottle of champagne:--what can have happened to this?" Poor Fanny was absolutely pained. Saville enjoyed it, for he always revenged a jest by an impertinence. "Nay," said Godolphin, "our friend does but joke. Your champagne is excellent, Fanny. Well, Saville, and where is young Greenhough? He is vanished. Report says he was marked down in your company, and has not risen since." "Report is the civilest jade in the world. According to her all the pigeons disappear in my fields. But, seriously speaking, Greenhough is off--gone to America--over head and ears in debt--debts of honor. Now," said Saville, very slowly, "there's the difference between the gentleman and the parvenu; the gentleman, when all is lost, cuts his throat: the parvenu only cuts his creditors. I am really very angry with Greenhough that he did not destroy himself. A young man under my protection and all: so d----d ungrateful in him." "He was not much in your debt--eh?" said Lord Falconer, speaking for the first time as the wine began to get into his head. Saville looked hard at the speaker. "Lord Falconer, a pinch of snuff: there is something singularly happy in your question; so much to the point: you have great knowledge of the world--great. He was very much in my debt. I introduced the vulgar dog into the world, and he owes me all the thousands he had the Honor to lose in good society!" "Do you know, Percy," continued Saville, "do you know, by the way, that my poor dear friend Jasmin is dead? died after a hearty game of whist. He had just time to cry 'four by honours' when death trumped him. It was a great shock to me: he was the second best player at Graham's. Those sudden deaths are very awful--especially with the game in one's hands." "Very mortifying, indeed," seriously said Lord Falconer, who had just been initiated into whist. "'Tis droll," said Saville, "to see how often the last words of a man tally with his life; 'tis like the moral to the fable. The best instance I know is in Lord Chesterfield, whose fine soul went out in that sublime and inimitable sentence--`Give Mr. Darrell a chair.'" "Capital," cried Lord Falconer. "Saville, a game at ecarte." As the lion in the Tower looked at the lapdog, so in all the compassion of contempt looked Saville on Lord Falconer. "Infelix puer!" muttered Godolphin; "Infelix puer atque, impar congressus Achilli."