The hypocrisy and scandal which brandy produced in the general room were occasionally very fierce, especially when whispers had travelled quietly as the flies all over the house that one of the ladies had certainly, on one occasion, revoked at cards—­for one reason, and one only.  Free speculations would be cheerfully indulged in at other times on the exact quantity the visitor who left yesterday had taken during his stay, and the number of months which the charitable might give him to live.

[Illustration:  ON THE BOULEVARDS.]

After the general brandy, in degree of interest, stood dress.  The shopping was prodigious.  The carts of the Louvre, the Ville de Paris, the Coin de Rue, and other famous houses of nouveautes were for ever rattling to Mrs. Rowe’s door.  With a toss of the head a parcel from the Bon Marche was handed to its owner.  Mrs. Jones must have come to Paris with just one change—­and such a change!  Mrs. Tottenham had nothing fit to wear.  Mrs. Court must still be wearing out her trousseau—­and her youngest was three!  Mrs. Rhode had no more taste, my dear, than our cook.  The men were not far behind—­had looked out for Captain Tottenham in the Army List; went to Galignani’s expressly:  not in it, by Jove, sir!  Court paid four shillings in the pound hardly two years ago, and met him swelling it with his wife (deuced pretty creature!) yesterday at Bignon’s.  Is quite up to Marennes oysters:  wonder where he could have heard of ’em.  Rhode is a bore; plenty of money, very good-natured; read a good deal—­but can’t the fellow come to table in something better than those eternal plaid trousers?  Bad enough in Lord Brougham.  Eccentricity with the genius, galling enough; but without, not to be borne, sir.  Last night Jones was simply drunk, and got a wigging, no doubt, when he found his room.  He looks it all.

We are an amiable people!

Happily, I have forgotten the Joneses and the Tottenhams, and the Courts and the Rhodes!  The two “sets” who dwell in my memory—­who are, I may say, somewhat linked with my own life, and of whom I have something to tell—­were, as a visitor said of the fowls of Boulogne hotels—­birds apart.  They crossed and re-crossed under Mrs. Rowe’s roof until they hooked together; and I was mixed up with them, until a tragedy and a happy event made us part company.

Now, so complicated are our treaties—­offensive and defensive—­that I have to refer to my note-book, where I am likely to meet any one of them, to see whether I am on speaking terms with the coming man or woman as the case may be.

I shall first introduce the Cockaynes as holding the greater “lengths” on my stage.

CHAPTER IV.

THE COCKAYNES IN PARIS.

The morning after a bevy of “the blonde daughters of Albion” have arrived in Paris, Pater—­over the coffee (why is it impossible to get such coffee in England?), the delicious bread, and the exquisite butter—­proceeds to expound his views of the manner in which the time of the party should be spent.  So was it with the Cockaynes, an intensely British party.