“Ah! my dear Duchess,” he said, “you are welcome a thousand times. A chair, Loustalot.” (He seated himself close beside the lovely visitor.) “I was dreaming of old age,” he said, “and imperishable youth comes to rebuke me. Your Grace, more loving-kind than Aurora, once bestowed immortality on me, but with a better percipience than the goddess when she doomed her poor Tithonus to perpetual dotage. This is no dry grasshopper’s note, but the same liquid cackle that greeted our sallies at Chatsworth. Do you remember the French Marquis, whose hair-powder we dusted with sugar, and how at the breakfast-table, the heat and _sueur_ having melted it, the flies settled until the poor man’s head was like a plum pudding? _Hélas!_ the jocund spirit survives; only the environment dejects. But now that your Grace----” “Milord Byron!” announced Loustalot at the door. The Beau rose, and advanced with infinite courtesy. Always the pink of breeding, he had yet an especial part to play before this pale, distinguished guest, whose compliment on the “exquisite propriety” of his dress and conduct had once reached his ears, never to be forgotten. “I greet your lordship,” he said, “with a particular confidence, since for the nonce a goddess does the honours of my poor abode. Ah! that Sèvres biscuit figure--a girl bathing, after Falconet. It will appeal to you--a new acquisition. You know my fancy for canes and snuff-boxes and china--trivial pursuits, but more profitable than fox-hunting.” “His Grace the Duke of Bedford!” bellowed Loustalot. Brummell, having deposited the poet in a third seat, hurried to the door. “Bedford, my dear fellow,” he whispered, horrified, “do you realise that the collar of your coat is turned up at the back? It recalls to me the most supreme moment in my life. I was due at Lady Dungannon’s reception, and circumstances had forced me--hush! the admission is inexpressibly painful--to, to take a hackney coach. However, I believed that I had successfully evaded detection, and had mounted the stairs into full view of the drawing-room, when a servant whispered in my ear, ‘Sir--do you know that you have got a straw in your shoe?’ Conceive, if you can, my horror. I shall never forget that moment.” The memory, indeed, appeared so to weigh upon him, that for a little he forgot his company, and sat apart from it in dreary abstraction. The name of Mr. Chig Chester being called withdrew him from it, and he rose gaily. “Our redoubtable gamester and sportsman,” he said, returning with the visitor. “We have material here for a table, Duchess. But remember, in Caen we play only for love and crackers.”