The two friends quaffed off glass after glass, with as much gusto as if they had only just commenced a night’s carouse; and then each crossing their legs in an indolent and careless manner, remained silent for a short time. The sleepers were snoring in concert, and did not seem likely to awake for some time, but to monopolize the coffee-room for a chamber, for that day at least. After the lapse of a short interval, Maretzo looked up with an expression of countenance, half solemn, and half humorous, and, addressing himself to Kay, says: ‘Kay, my boy!’ ‘Well, my dear fellow,’ said Kay. ‘I have been thinking, Kay.’ ‘And what have you been thinking?’ interrogated his dissipated companion. ‘Why, that we have been a pair of d—d scoundrels!’ ‘Ha! ha! ha! what a discovery!—why, I have known and felt that long ago, Maretzo,’ returned Kay. ‘We have taken that which did not belong to us,’ added Maretzo, ‘and borrowed that which we never repaid.’ ‘And never meant to repay;’ observed Kay, with a laugh. ‘We have diddled our tailor; broken the fortunes, and the hearts of innumerable bootmakers, hatters, frizzeurs, laundresses, and other creditors.’ ‘Very true,’ remarked Kay, ‘and we are likely enough to break the hearts of a great many more, if they are silly enough to trust us.’ ‘Ah!’ ejaculated Maretzo, and he fetched a very deep sigh, reflectively. ‘Ah!’ mimicked Kay; ‘why, confound me, if you are not getting melancholy.’ ‘I am becoming penitent,’ replied Maretzo, in a tone still half serious, ‘I am becoming penitent, Kay.’ ‘Penitent!’ ‘Yes, downright compunctious.’ ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ ‘Don’t laugh, I feel a touch of the serious,’ remarked Maretzo, ‘I think it is high time that we began to think about a reformation, Kay.’ ‘Well, positively.’ ‘Ah! it may be well, positively,’ repeated Maretzo, ‘and, positively, I wish it to be well.’ ‘And what is your plan of reformation?’ inquired Kay. ‘Why, matrimony.’ ‘Matrimony?’ ‘Ay, sober wedlock,’ answered Maretzo, ‘it would be advisable for us to do the steady and the amiable for some time, until we can meet with a favorable match; a handsome sum in the shape of a wedding dowry, and a handsome wife, and then we may settle down into two worthy gentlemen, very patterns of domesticated virtue.’ ‘Not a bad plan,’ said Kay, smiling, ‘but it is almost too soon to think about that, yet.’ ‘Not at all.’ ‘That is only your opinion.’ ‘And I have no doubt, as we have hitherto generally agreed, that it will be your opinion also.’ ‘I cannot make up my mind to be shackled just yet, my dear fellow,’ replied Kay. ‘Nonsense, you may let the opportunity go by, and then you would repent it, take my word for it.’ ‘Probably, I might,’ said Kay, ‘but I shall e’en trust fortune a little while longer.’ ‘But fortune will not trust you—we owe her too large an account already,’ observed Maretzo. ‘But I am determined to jilt the jade still further, yet.’ ‘Mind you do not deceive yourself.’