Ha! ha! ha!--ha! ha! ha!--laughed the proprietor, motioning me to a seat, and throwing himself back at full length upon an ottoman. "I see," said he, perceiving that I could not immediately reconcile myself to the _bienseance_ of so singular a welcome--"I see you are astonished at my apartment--at my statues--my pictures--my originality of conception in architecture and upholstery--absolutely drunk, eh? with my magnificence. But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice dropped to the very spirit of cordiality) pardon me, my dear sir, for my uncharitable laughter. You appeared so _utterly_ astonished. Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous that a man must laugh or die. To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More--a very fine man was Sir Thomas More--Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also there is a long list of characters who came to the same magnificent end, in the _Absurdities_ of Ravisius Textor. Do you know, however,"--continued he musingly--"that at Sparta (which is now Palæochori), at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of _socle_ upon which are still legible the letters [Greek: LASM]. They are undoubtedly part of [Greek: GELASMA]. Now at Sparta were a thousand temples and shrines to a thousand different divinities. How exceedingly strange that the altar of Laughter should have survived all the others! But in the present instance"--he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice and manner--"in the present instance I have no right to be merry at your expense. You might well have been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, my little regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of the same order--mere _ultras_ of fashionable insipidity. This is better than fashion--is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to become the rage--that is with those who could afford it at the cost of their entire patrimony. I have guarded, however, against any such profanation. With one exception you are the only human being besides myself, who has been admitted within the mysteries of these imperial precincts." I bowed in acknowledgement: for the overpowering sense of splendor and perfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity of his address and manner, prevented me from expressing in words my appreciation of what I might have construed into a compliment.