Would you believe it, that before we reached Chamounix we had become the best friends in the world? He explained himself and his rascally modes of action, and I nobly exonerated him,--we exchanged cards,--and when we parted, this same author's bug-bear McWhing, overcome with sentiment and whisky toddy (he is a Scotchman you know) swore that I was the grandest fellow in the world, and that if ever he could serve me he would. He knew my princely title by this time, but he would have given me a still higher name. 'You are not--_hic_--a poet yourself?' he murmured, leaning on me fondly as he rolled to bed. I told him no. 'I am sorry--very!' he declared, the tears of whisky rising to his eyes, 'If you had been I would have done a great thing for you,--I would have boomed you,--_for nothing_!' I left him snoring nobly, and saw him no more. But I think he'll recognize me, Geoffrey;--I'll go and look him up personally. By all the gods!--if he had only known Who held him between life and death upon the Mauvais Pas!" I stared, puzzled. "But he did know"--I said--"Did you not say you exchanged cards?" "True, but that was afterwards!" and Lucio laughed; "I assure you, my dear fellow, we can 'manage' McWhing!" I was intensely interested in the story as he told it,--he had such a dramatic way of speaking and looking, while his very gestures brought the whole scene vividly before me like a picture. I spoke out my thought impulsively. "You would certainly have made a superb actor, Lucio!" "How do you know I am not one?" he asked with a flashing glance, then he added quickly--"No,--there is no occasion to paint the face and prance over the boards before a row of tawdry footlights like the paid mimes, in order to be histrionically great. The finest actor is he who can play the comedy of life perfectly, as I aspire to do. To walk well, talk well, smile well, weep well, groan well, laugh well--and die well!--it is all pure acting,--because in every man there is the dumb dreadful immortal Spirit who is real,--who cannot act,--who Is,--and who steadily maintains an infinite though speechless protest against the body's Lie!"