high spirits and an utter emancipation from care, and that abominable nuisance called thought. So here goes! my dear boys. Excuse me empty your glass-I'm a great stickler for forms in drinking. No day-light in the first instance, and no heel-taps in the second. That's my way. Hem! Perhaps I may have seemed somewhat prolix on this occasion: but, the fact is, I cannot endure to see a man pass the bottle. It is, in my opinion, the acme, or rather, perhaps, the bathos of low and ill breeding. If there be anything more ungentlemanlike, it is the conduct of a president who suffers anything of the sort, without inflicting bumper fines." "Upon my word, Sir," said Charles, "You are become very arbitrary." 66 Perhaps it may appear so," replied the gentleman in black," at all events I have talked more than is my wont. But I hope never to see the day when it shall be considered rude to press a gentleman to take his wine. Monsieur Desonges, the bottle stands with you, and you are wanted. What in the world are you thinking about?" "I beg your pardon, gentlemen!" exclaimed Louis, "I was up late last night, and really—— "Pshaw!" said the gentleman in black, “ You are half asleep-here-take a pinch of my genuine it will rouse you," then, handing his blackguard to the Frenchman, he whispered in Charles's ear, "These Monsieurs are poor creatures when compared with you English. And then their wines- What are they? The flavour is very well, to be sure: but, by all that's dusky! one might drink a hogshead for any effect it would have on such heads as your's and mine. No, my dear Sir, there's nothing like your English port, black and strong-Eh?" "I don't like that snuff," said Louis, returning the box, "blackguard does not exactly suit me." "Then try this," quoth he of the black Geneva cloak, taking from his pocket a curiously carved " sneezer," made from Vesuvian lava. “ It is a mixture which I have lately introduced, and which appears likely to become a favourite among your rising men, though the old courtiers think it somewhat too strong." 66 Louis, after a violent fit of sneezing, exclaimed, strong indeed!" "It seems well calculated," observed Charles, "to prevent a man from going to sleep." 66 Precisely so," replied the gentleman in black, "It is a mixture of Paris black rappee and hellebore, and just now in great request among the deputies here." The trio now" set in" for a regular drinking bout, in which it is almost unnecessary to say the gentleman in black was too much for the two young men. As usual on such occasions, they came to high words, and Charles flatly |