_Leah._ "Well, then, pray be cautious with this Monsieur Paroly you think so much of because he's French. Let _him_ talk--interview _him_--ask him all about his family, if he's got one--his children, and all that; play a game of billiards with him--talk French politics--dance 'La Paladine'--make him laugh--make him smoke one of those strong Trichinopoli cigars Bob gave you for the tops of omnibuses--make him feel your biceps--teach him how to play cup and ball--give him a sketch--then bring him in to tea. Madame Cornelys will be there, and Julia Ironsides, and Ida, who'll talk French by the yard. Then we'll show him the St. Bernards and Minerva, and I'll give him an armful of Gloire de Dijon roses, and shake him warmly by the hand, so that he won't feel ill-natured towards us; and we'll get him out of the house as quick as possible." * * * * * Thus prepared, Barty awaited M. Paroly, and this is a free rendering of what M. Paroly afterwards wrote about him: "With a mixture of feelings difficult to analyze and define, I bade adieu to the sage and philosopher of Cheyne Row, and had myself transported in my hansom to the abode of the other great _sommité littéraire_ in London, the light one--M. Josselin, to whom we in France also are so deeply in debt. "After a longish drive through sordid streets we reached a bright historic vicinity and a charming hill, and my invisible Jehu guided me at the great trot by verdant country lanes. We turned through lodge gates into a narrow drive in a well-kept garden where there was a lawn of English greenness, on which were children and nurses and many dogs, and young people who played at the lawn-tennis. "The door of the house was opened by a charming young woman in black with a white apron and cap, like a waitress at the Bouillon Duval, who guided me through a bright corridor full of pictures and panoplies, and then through a handsome studio to a billiard-room, where M. Josselin was playing at _the_ billiard to himself all alone. "M. Josselin receives me with jovial cordiality; he is enormously tall, enormously handsome, like a drum-major of the Imperial Guard, except that his lip and chin are shaved and he has slight whiskers; very well dressed, with thick curly hair, and regular features, and a singularly sympathetic voice: he is about thirty-five. "I have to decline a game of billiards, and refuse a cigar, a very formidable cigar, very black and very thick and very long. I don't smoke, and am no hand at a cue. Besides, I want to talk about _Étoiles Mortes_, about _Les Trépassées de François Villon_, about _Déjanire et Dalila_! [Illustration: "'HE PRESENTS ME FIRST TO MADAME JOSSELIN'"]