These visits were a great treat to the captain; and it was the anticipation of one of them that now kept him in his room. To his astonishment, he had received that morning a note from his friend, requesting him to remain at home in the evening, as he would call upon and crave a service of him. Carcassonne was delighted at the intimation, and not feeling quite certain when evening might be said to begin, he shut himself up in his room at four o'clock, ordered in dinner from a neighbouring _traiteur_, sipped his coffee in contented solitude, and now awaited, with the dutiful patience of a soldier on sentry, the promised coming of his friend. At last a cough and a heavy footstep were heard upon the stairs; the captain took up a candle, opened the door, and, stepping out into the gloomy corridor, the light fell upon the tall ungainly figure and sullen features of Sigismund Fatello. "Come in, my dear fellow," cried Carcassonne, in his stentorian tones, and with a soldier's oath. "I've expected you these three hours. What--wet? Snow? Come to the fire, and take a sup of cognac till the punch is made." It snowed heavily outside, and the banker's upper-coat had caught a few large flakes in crossing the court. He heeded them not, but putting down, untasted, the glass of brandy handed to him by the captain, he took a chair, and motioned Carcassonne to another. "What the deuce is the matter with you, Sigismund?" said the captain, looking hard at his friend. "Are you ill?" "Better than I have for a long time been. Fresh from a wedding." "Oho!" said Carcassonne. "I thought you had not put on full dress to visit your old comrade in his den at the Northern Eagle. And whose wedding was it?" "A singular one," replied the banker, parrying the question. "Strangely brought about, certainly. Would you like to hear its history, Carcassonne?" "By all means," said the captain, who always liked whatever Fatello proposed. "But the business you came about?--you said I could do something for you. What is it?" "Plenty of time for that. It will keep. Let me tell you of this marriage." "Delighted to listen," said Carcassonne, settling himself in his chair, and filling his pipe from a huge embroidered bag, once the property of an Arabian Emir's lady, but which a razzia had degraded into a receptacle for tobacco. "You must know, then, Carcassonne," said Fatello, "that a friend of mine, named Oliver, a man of middle age, more calculated to shine in a counting-house than in a boudoir, was fool enough, not very long ago, to fall in love with a beautiful girl, twenty years younger than himself; and as he was rich, and her father avaricious, the marriage was brought about, although not altogether with her good will." "Bad," quoth the captain, between two puffs of his pipe. "An unwilling bride is apt to prove a sour wife."