“Successful nonsense!” cries the lady. “Don’t go on like a cold-blooded calculating machine! You don’t believe a word of what you say, and a more imprudent person never lived than you yourself were as a young man.” This was departing from the question, which women will do. “Nonsense!” again says my romantic being of a partner-of-existence. “Don’t tell ME, sir. They WILL be provided for! Are we to be for ever taking care of the morrow, and not trusting that we shall be cared for? _You_ may call your way of thinking prudence. I call it _sinful worldliness_, sir.” When my life-partner speaks in a certain strain, I know that remonstrance is useless, and argument unavailing, and I generally resort to cowardly subterfuges, and sneak out of the conversation by a pun, a side joke, or some other flippancy. Besides, in this case, though I argue against my wife, my sympathy is on her side. I know Mr. Philip is imprudent and headstrong, but I should like him to succeed, and be happy. I own he is a scapegrace, but I wish him well. So, just as the diligence of Laffitte and Caillard is clearing out of Boulogne town, the conductor causes the carriage to stop, and a young fellow has mounted up on the roof in a twinkling; and the postilion says, “Hi!” to his horses, and away those squealing greys go clattering. And a young lady, happening to look out of one of the windows of the intérieur, has perfectly recognized the young gentleman who leaped up to the roof so nimbly; and the two boys who were in the rotonde would have recognized the gentleman, but that they were already eating the sandwiches which my wife had provided. And so the diligence goes on, until it reaches that hill, where the girls used to come and offer to sell you apples; and some of the passengers descend and walk, and the tall young man on the roof jumps down, and approaches the party in the interior, and a young lady cries out, “La!” and her mamma looks impenetrably grave, and not in the least surprised; and her father gives a wink of one eye, and says, “It’s him, is it, by George!” and the two boys coming out of the rotonde, their mouths full of sandwich, cry out, “Hullo! It’s Mr. Firmin.”