"Thank you, baron, tolerably!" said Albert, touching the proffered finger very lightly with two fingers of his own hand, for it was not one of Albert's foibles to let himself be overawed by haughty insolence--"I really thought _you_ would have forgotten me and my name." "Oh no!" said Felix, "I thought of it directly this morning, when Jean counted out the company.--But how divine you look in citizen's dress! ha, ha, ha! if our comrades could see you! really divine! upon honor!" and Felix, a hair-brush in one hand and a small looking-glass in the other, remained standing before Albert, and stared at him from head to foot as if he were examining an animal from foreign lands. "Do you think so?" asked Albert, dryly; "glad of it. Am sorry cannot return the compliment. This much I can tell you, however--you don't look any younger. Have you another cigar? or is the Havana you are smoking the last of the Mohicans?" "There, on the table," said Felix, "in the ebony box--press the spring down--not younger? but I hope not older, I mean perceptibly--at least you see I still enjoy all my teeth, and five-sixths of my hair," and Felix brushed with infinite satisfaction the very pretty crisp curls which covered his well-shaped head in surprising abundance. "Well, the hair is tolerably fair," said Albert, pitilessly; he had taken a seat on the sofa and examined Felix, as he stood before the long mirror, with great delight; "but what has given you all those wrinkles in your face? The bright morning light is really not good for you any more. Formerly I used to compliment you on your likeness to Byron; but now you are more like Byron's father. And then--you never were particularly stout, but now you are really reduced to a minimum." "The slimmer the more elegant," replied Felix, "and besides that comes back. I have been kept rather short of late by my doctor." "The old story?" "Well, perhaps a new edition." "Revised and augmented?" "So, so; but it is all right now. We have become steady; we are going to settle down. How do you like these trousers? I had them built. A clever combination of the military cut and the civilian cut. We are going to marry----" "You ought to leave that alone, baron." "Why?" "At least you ought to many a sensible elderly woman." "Why?" "Because ere long you will need a motherly friend much more than a pretentious young wife." "Pshaw! _mon cher_, I have the honor to come from a race in which men can live fast and yet long. A little rheumatism--that is the worst. How do you like this coat?" "Why, I cannot say. You know I never understood anything about these things." "I know. You were always the unclean vessel into which our good colonel discharged his wrath. Do you know the poor devil has killed himself?" "No; why?"