In the meantime, as winter advanced, Mr. Waring's health was fully re-established; and, as many of his favorite boon companions, who had been absent on their summer tours, returned to the neighborhood, Oswald began to resume his former habits of extravagant and reckless dissipation. Deer-hunting, coursing, partridge-shooting, and other field sports, occupied the mornings; and dinner parties, oyster suppers, and other entertainments, accompanied and followed by wine-drinking, song-singing, card-playing, and similar orgies, at home or abroad, filled up the afternoons and evenings. Again were Valentine's services brought into requisition three or four nights of every week, to drive his master to the city at dusk, and home again at dawn. Upon these occasions, Valentine would drive Mr. Waring first to the clubhouse, restaurant, or billiard-saloon, that happened to be his destination for the evening, set him down, take the carriage and horses to the livery stable, leave them, and then go to Leroux's and stay with Fannie until the hour of closing the store arrived, when he would take her home. Valentine, from his "gentlemanly" appearance, dress, and address, as well as from his perfectly trustworthy character, was not an unwelcome visitor at the store, where, behind the counter and by the side of Fannie, he made himself so useful that Monsieur Leroux would often speculate as to the possibility of getting him for an assistant. This also was Valentine's and Fannie's great ambition; but it was a vain one, for his personal attendance was considered indispensable to his master's comfort. Valentine's standing order, upon these occasions of their night visits to the town, was to be in waiting with the carriage for Mr. Waring at twelve o'clock. And the man was obliged to be punctual, though he had often to wait two or three hours for the coming of the master. And, as a general fact, the longer Mr. Waring remained among his boon companions, the more intoxicated he became; and when at last he appeared, all the old humiliations and provocations of Valentine's former days were renewed. You know what these were. It would be vain repetition to describe them again.