“Let us enter,” said I. “I have the run of the house, and we may find--” “‘Some young vices--some fair iniquities’” interrupted Vincent, with a hiccup-- “‘Leade on good fellowe,’ quoth Robin Hood, Lead on, I do bid thee.’” And with these words, the door opened in obedience to my rap, and we mounted to the marquis’s tenement au premiere. The room was pretty full--the soi-disante marquise was flitting from table to table--betting at each, and coquetting with all; and the marquis himself, with a moist eye and a shaking hand, was affecting the Don Juan with the various Elviras and Annas with which his salon was crowded. Vincent was trying to follow me through the crowd, but his confused vision and unsteady footing led him from one entanglement to another, till he was quite unable to proceed. A tall, corpulent Frenchman, six foot by five, was leaning, (a great and weighty objection,) just before him, utterly occupied in the vicissitudes of an ecarte table, and unconscious of Vincent’s repeated efforts, first on one side, and then on the other, to pass him. At last, the perplexed wit, getting more irascible as he grew more bewildered, suddenly seized the vast incumbrance by the arm, and said to him in a sharp, querulous tone, “Pray, Monsieur, why are you like the lote tree in Mahomet’s Seventh Heaven?” “Sir!” cried the astonished Frenchman. “Because,” (continued Vincent, answering his own enigma)--“because, beyond you there is no passing!” The Frenchman (one of that race who always forgive any thing for a bon mot) smiled, bowed, and drew himself aside. Vincent steered by, and, joining me, hiccuped out, “In rebus adversis opponite pectora fortia.” Meanwhile I had looked round the room for the objects of my pursuit: to my great surprise I could not perceive them; they may be in the other room, thought I, and to the other room I went; the supper was laid out, and an old bonne was quietly helping herself to some sweetmeat. All other human beings (if, indeed, an old woman can be called a human being) were, however, invisible, and I remained perfectly bewildered as to the non-appearance of Warburton and his companion. I entered the Salle a Jouer once more--I looked round in every corner--I examined every face--but in vain; and with a feeling of disappointment very disproportioned to my loss, I took Vincent’s arm, and we withdrew.