men's first and second childhood."

"He was a great man in his way," I assented. "Do you remember his answer
to the Duchesse de Maine, when she asked him, for a political purpose,
if he could remain faithful for one week to an intrigue then twenty-four
hours old? '_Madame, quand une fois j'embrasse un parti, je suis capable
des plus grandes sacrifices pour le soutenir._' The object of that
heroic constancy was the Maréchale de Villars, one of the loveliest
women in France. It was the sublime of fatuity--was it not?"

"Well, I don't know," said Charley, settling himself comfortably in his
cushions, and glancing almost imperceptibly at Bruce; "they seem to
fancy us, notwithstanding. We have only one great obstacle--the mothers
that _bore_ us."

Be it known that "they," used simply, stood in his vocabulary for the
fair sex in general.

"Nonsense," replied Fallowfield; "don't be so ungrateful. You don't know
what you owe to those anxious parents. It helps you enormously, being
the objects of perpetual warnings from husbands and chaperons, the
first considering you _mauvais sujets_, the last _mauvais partis_; for
you _are_ 'detrimentals,' for the most part, you will own."

"_Vetitum ergo cupitum_," interrupted Livingstone. "A good many
moralists before and since old Rabelais have discoursed on that text.
The Chief of Errington was probably much more agreeable, besides being a
better match than Jock of Hazeldean, who clearly was what an old
Frenchman lately described to me--'_un vaurien, mon cher, qui court les
filles et qui n'a pas le son_.' But then poor Frank was the government