"I remain calm when the magic-lantern is going by! Ah! my dear, you are
very severe on me, and really--"

"Yes, yes, jest about it, but it was none the less true that the
recollections of your childhood have failed."

"Now, my dear, do you want me to leave my boots out on the hearth this
evening on going to bed? Do you want me to call in the magic-lantern
man, and to look out a big sheet and a candle end for him, as my poor
mother used to do? I can still see her as she used to entrust her white
sheet to him. 'Don't make a hole in it, at least,' she would say. How
we used to clap our hands in the mysterious darkness! I can recall all
those joys, my dear, but you know so many other things have happened
since then. Other pleasures have effaced those."

"Yes, I can understand, your bachelor pleasures; and, there, I am sure
that this Christmas Eve is the first you have passed by your own
fireside, in your dressing-gown, without supper; for you used to sup on
Christmas Eve."

"To sup, to sup."

"Yes, you supped; I will wager you did."

"I have supped two or three times, perhaps, with friends, you know; two
sous' worth of roasted chestnuts and--"

"A glass of sugar and water."