I'm in the sixties--sound of wind and limb--only two false teeth--one at each side, bicuspids, merely for show. I'm rather bald, but it suits my style; a little fat, perhaps--a pound and a half over sixteen stone! but I'm an inch and a half over six feet, and very big-boned. Altogether, diablement bien conservé! I sleep well, the sleep of the just; I have a good appetite and a good digestion, and a good conceit of myself still, thank Heaven--though nothing like what it used to be! One can survive the loss of one's self-respect; but of one's vanity, never. What a prosperous and happy life mine has been, to be sure, up to a few short months ago--hardly ever an ache or a pain!--my only real griefs, my dear mother's death ten years back, and my father's in 1870. Yes, I have warmed both hands at the fire of life, and even burnt my fingers now and then, but not severely. One love disappointment. The sting of it lasted a couple of years, the compensation more than thirty! I loved her all the better, perhaps, that I did not marry her. I'm afraid it is not in me to love a very good wife of my own as much as I really ought! And I love her children as well as if they'd been mine, and her grandchildren even better. They are irresistible, these grandchildren of Barty's and Leah's--mine wouldn't have been a patch on them; besides, I get all the fun and none of the bother and anxiety. Evidently it was my true vocation to remain single--and be a tame cat in a large, warm house, where there are lots of nice children. O happy Bob Maurice! O happy sexagenarian! "O me fortunatum, mea si bona nôrim!" (What would Père Brossard say at this? he would give me a twisted pinch on the arm--and serve me right!) I'm very glad I've been successful, though it's not a very high achievement to make a very large fortune by buying and selling that which put into a man's mouth is said to steal away his brains! But it does better things than this. It reconciles and solves and resolves mental discords, like music. It makes music for people who have no ear--and there are so many of these in the world that I'm a millionaire, and Franz Schubert died a pauper. So I prefer to drink beer--as _he_ did; and I never miss a Monday Pop if I can help it. _I_ have done better things, too. I have helped to govern my country and make its laws; but it all came out of wine to begin with--all from learning how to buy and sell. We're a nation of shopkeepers, although the French keep better shops than ours, and more of them.