scarcely passed the threshold of Verey's when I became absolutely like
one in a trance. The large salon was more than usually crowded, and it
was with difficulty that we obtained a place at a table where some other
English were seated, among whom I recognised by lately made acquaintance,
Mr. Edward Bingham.

Excepting a cup of coffee I had taken nothing the entire day, and so
completely did my anxieties of different kinds subdue all appetite, that
the most recherche viands of this well-known restaurant did not in the
least tempt me. The champagne alone had any attraction for me; and,
seduced by the icy coldness of the wine, I drank copiously. This was all
that was wanting to complete the maddening confusion of my brain, and the
effect was instantaneous; the lights danced before my eyes; the lustres
whirled round; and, as the scattered fragments of conversations, on
either side met my ear, I was able to form some not very inaccurate
conception of what insanity may be. Politics and literature, Mexican
bonds and Noblet's legs, Pates de perdreaux and the quarantine laws, the
extreme gauche and the "Bains Chinois," Victor Hugo and rouge et noir,
had formed a species of grand ballet d'action in my fevered brain, and I
was perfectly beside myself; occasionally, too, I would revert to my own
concerns, although I was scarcely able to follow up any train of thought
for more than a few seconds together, and totally inadequate to
distinguish the false from the true. I continued to confound the
counterfeit with my cousin, and wonder how my poor uncle, for whom I was
about to put on the deepest mourning, could possibly think of driving me
out of my lodgings. Of my duel for the morning, I had the most shadowy
recollection, and could not perfectly comprehend whether it was O'Leary
or I was the principal, and indeed cared but little. In this happy state
of independent existence I must have passed a considerable time, and as
my total silence when spoken to, or my irrelevant answers, appeared to