“Yes, yes,----I agree with you,” said Foglass; “she has reason to be sore about the Onslows' treatment.” “I said a bore, sir,--not sore,” screamed out Haggerstone. “Ha!” replied the other, not understanding the correction. “I remember one day, when Townsend--” “D----n Townsend!” said Haggerstone. “No, not Dan,--Tom Townsend. That fellow who was always with Mathews.” “Walk a little quicker, and you may talk as much balderdash as you please,” said the other, buttoning up his coat, and resolving not to pay the slightest attention to his companion's agreeability. “Who is here?” asked Haggerstone, as he followed the servant up the stairs. “Nobody but Count Petrolaffsky, sir.” “Un Comte à bon compte,” muttered Haggerstone to himself, always pleased when he could be sarcastic, even in soliloquy. “They 'll find it no easy matter to get a tenant for this house nowadays. Florence is going down, sir, and will soon be little better than Boulogne-sur-Mer.” “Very pleasant, indeed, for a month in summer,” responded Foglass, who had only caught up the last word. “Do you think of going there?” “Going there!” shouted out the other, in a voice that made misconception impossible. “About as soon as I should take lodgings in Wapping for country air!” This speech brought them to the door of the drawing-room, into which Haggerstone now entered, with that peculiar step which struck him as combining the jaunty slide of a man of fashion with the martial tread of an old soldier. “Ha! my old adherents,----all my faithful ones!” sighed Mrs. Ricketts, giving a hand to each to kiss; and then, in a voice of deep emotion, she said, “Bless you both! May peace and happiness be beneath your roof-trees! joy sit beside your hearth!” Haggerstone reddened a little; for, however alive to the ludicrous in his neighbors, he was marvellously sensitive as to having a part in the piece himself. “You are looking quite yourself again,” said he, bluntly. “The soul, indeed, is unchanged; the spirit--” “What's become of Purvis?” broke in Haggerstone, who never gave any quarter to these poetic flights. “You 'll see him presently. He has been so much fatigued and exhausted by this horrid police investigation, that he never gets up till late. I 've put him on a course of dandelion and aconite, too; the first effect of which is always unpleasant.” Leaving Foglass in conclave with the hostess, Haggerstone now approached the Count, who had for several times performed his toilet operation of running his hands through his hair, in expectation of being addressed. “How d'ye do,----any piquet lately?” asked the Colonel, half cavalierly. “As if I was tinking of piquet, wid my country in shains! How you can aske me dat?” “What did you do with Norwood t'other night?” resumed the other, in a voice somewhat lower. “Won four hundred and fifty,--but he no pay!” “Nor ever will.” “What you say?--not pay me what I wins!” “Not a sou of it.”