ancient priestess of Baal. She then sat down to her piano, telling me
that to find some occupation for the long morning of nine hours would
prove the hardest of all the rules, for she did not dine till two, which
was then the fashionable hour. We had a meat breakfast without coffee,
which I had proscribed, and I left her, promising to call again before I
left Paris.

When I got back to my inn, I found my brother there looking very uneasy
at my absence at such an early hour. When I saw him I cried,--

"Rome or Paris, which is it to be?"

"Rome," he replied, cringingly.

"Wait in the antechamber. I will do your business for you."

When I had finished I called him in, and found my other brother and his
wife, who said they had come to ask me to give them a dinner.

"Welcome!" said I. "You are come just in time to see me deal with the
abbe, who has resolved at last to go to Rome and to follow my
directions."

I sent Clairmont to the diligence office, and told him to book a place
for Lyons; and then I wrote out five bills of exchange, of five louis
each, on Lyons, Turin, Genoa, Florence, and Rome.

"Who is to assure me that these bills will be honoured?"

"I assure you, blockhead. If you don't like them you can leave them."