air of patriarchal philanthropy. "I told your cook three times about
the asparagus; and now--taste it. I told him not to put too much sugar,
and he has put none. Thus it is with mankind,--ever in extremes, and
consequently ever in error. Thus it was that Luther said, so
felicitously and so truly, that the human mind was like a drunken
peasant on horseback: prop it on one side, and it falls on the other."

"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Chaulieu. "Who would have thought one could have
found so much morality in a plate of asparagus! Taste this /salsifis/."

"Pray, Hamilton," said Huet, "what /jeu de mot/ was that you made
yesterday at Madame d'Epernonville's which gained you such applause?"

"Ah, repeat it, Count," cried Boulainvilliers; "'t was the most
classical thing I have heard for a long time."

"Why," said Hamilton, laying down his knife and fork, and preparing
himself by a large draught of the champagne, "why, Madame d'Epernonville
appeared without her /tour/; you know, Lord Bolingbroke, that /tour/ is
the polite name for false hair. 'Ah, sacre!' cried her brother,
courteously, 'ma soeur, que vous etes laide aujourd'hui: vous n'avez pas
votre tour!' 'Voila pourquoi elle n'est pas si-belle (Cybele),'
answered I."

"Excellent! famous!" cried we all, except Huet, who seemed to regard the
punster with a very disrespectful eye. Hamilton saw it. "You do not
think, Monsieur Huet, that there is wit in these /jeux de mots/: perhaps
you do not admire wit at all?"

"Yes, I admire wit as I do the wind. When it shakes the trees it is