own plate, and his neighbours have none; and he does the same with the knives and forks, which do not remain long in their hands. Lately some large spoons, convenient for helping every one, have been introduced at certain tables; he takes one of these spoons, plunges it into the dish, fills it, puts it into his mouth, and is highly astonished to see the soup he has just taken all over his clothes and linen. He forgets to drink at dinner, or, if he remembers it, thinks there is too much wine poured out for him; he flings more than half of it in the face of a gentleman seated at his right hand, drinks the rest with a great deal of composure, and cannot understand why everybody should burst out laughing for throwing on the floor the wine he did not wish to drink.[543] He keeps his bed a day or two for a slight indisposition, and a goodly number of ladies and gentlemen visit him, and converse with him in the _ruelle_;[544] in their presence he lifts up the blankets and spits in the sheets. He is taken to the Convent of the Carthusians, where they show him a gallery adorned with paintings, all executed by the hand of a master;[545] the monk who explains the subjects persistently expatiates on the life of Saint Bruno, and points out the adventure with the canon in one of the pictures.[546] Menalcas, whose thoughts are all the while wandering away from the gallery, and far beyond it, returns to it at last, and asks the monk whether it is the canon or Saint Bruno who is damned. Being once, as it happened, with a young widow, he talks to her of her deceased husband, and asks of what he died; this conversation renews all the sorrows of the lady, who, amidst tears and sobs, tells him all the particulars of her late husbandʼs illness, from the night he first was attacked by fever to his final agony; whereupon Menalcas, who apparently listens to her narrative with great attention, asks her if the deceased was her only husband. One morning he gets it into his head to hurry on everything for dinner; but he rises before the dessert is brought on, and leaves his guests by themselves. That day he is sure to be seen everywhere in town except on the spot where he has made an appointment about the very business which prevented him finishing his dinner, and made him walk, for fear it would take too long a time to get the horses and carriage ready. You may frequently hear him shout, scold, and get in a rage about one of his servants being out of the way. “Where can that man be?” says he;