considerably to the jaded and haggard expression of his features. A
proportion of stomach rather inclined to corpulency seemed to betray the
taste for the pleasures of the table, which the most radically coarse,
and yet (strange to say) the most generally accomplished and really
good-natured of royal profligates, combined with his other
qualifications. He was yawning very elaborately over a great heap of
papers when I entered. He finished his yawn (as if it were too brief
and too precious a recreation to lose), and then said, "Good morning,
Monsieur Devereux; I am glad that you have found me out /at last/."

"I was afraid, Monseigneur, of appearing an intruder on your presence,
by offering my homage to you before."

"So like my good fortune," said the Regent, turning to a man seated at
another table at some distance, whose wily, astute countenance, piercing
eye, and licentious expression of lip and brow, indicated at once the
ability and vice which composed his character. "So like my good
fortune, is it not, Dubois? If ever I meet with a tolerably pleasant
fellow, who does not disgrace me by his birth or reputation, he is
always so terribly afraid of intruding! and whenever I pick up a
respectable personage without wit, or a wit without respectability, he
attaches himself to me like a burr, and can't live a day without
inquiring after my health."

Dubois smiled, bowed, but did not answer, and I saw that his look was
bent darkly and keenly upon me.

"Well," said the Prince, "what think you of our opera, Count Devereux?
It beats your English one--eh?"