“What profanation! anything would be good enough for ague. It is in a man's days of vigorous health he merits cherishing. Let us console ourselves with Rodiger. Now, boy,” said he, as he cleared off a bumper from a large goblet, “I 'll give you some hints for your future, far more precious than this wine, good as it is. Gustave de Marsac, like Homer's hero, can give gold for brass, and instead of wine he will give you wisdom. First of all for a word of warning: don't fall in love with Sara. It's the popular error down here to do so, but it's a cruel mistake. That fellow that has the hemp-trade here,--what's his name,--the vulgar dog that wears mutton-chop whiskers, and fancies he's English because he gets his coats from London? I 'll remember his name presently,--he has all his life been proposing for Sara, and begging off--as matters go ill or well with the House of Oppovich; and as he is a shrewd fellow in business, all the young men here think they ought to 'go in' for Sara too.” I should say here that, however distasteful to me this talk, and however willingly I would have repressed it, it was totally out of my power to arrest the flow of words which with the force of a swollen torrent came from him. He drank freely, too, large goblets of champagne as he talked, and to this, I am obliged to own, I looked as my last hope of being rid of him. I placed every bottle I possessed on the table, and, lighting my cigar, resigned myself, with what patience I could, to the result. “Am I keeping you up, my dear Digby?” cried he, at last, after a burst of abuse on Fiume and all it contained that lasted about half an hour. “I seldom sit up so late,” was my cautious reply; “but I must own I have seldom such a good excuse.” “You hit it, boy; that was well and truly spoken. As a talker of the highest order of talk, I yield to no man in Europe. Do you remember Duvergier saying in the Chambre, as an apology for being late, 'I dined with DeMarsac'?” “I cannot say I remember that.” “How could you? You were an infant at the time.” Away he went after this into reminiscences of political life,--how deep he was in that Spanish marriage question, and how it caused a breach,--an irreparable breach between Guizot and himself, when that woman, “you know whom I mean, let out the secret to Bulwer. Of course I ought not to have confided it to her. I know all that as well as you can tell it me, but who is wise, who is guarded, who is self-possessed at all times?” Not entirely trustful of what he was telling me, and little interested in it besides, I brought him back to Fiume, and to the business that was now about to be confided to me. “Ah, very true; you want your instructions. You shall have them, not that you 'll need them long, _mon cher_. Six months--what am I saying?--three will see it all up with; Hodnig and Oppovich.” “What do you mean?” cried I, eagerly. “Just simply what I say.”