in the very next minute she began, with quite as great enthusiasm, to praise Miss Hobson’s last romance.  My good creature, what is that woman’s praise worth who absolutely admires the writings of Miss Hobson?  I offer a friend a bottle of ’44 claret, fit for a pontifical supper.  ‘This is capital wine,’ says he; ’and now we have finished the bottle, will you give me a bottle of that ordinaire we drank the other day?’ Very well, my good man.  You are a good judge—­of ordinaire, I dare say.  Nothing so provokes my anger, and rouses my sense of justice, as to hear other men undeservedly praised.  In a word, if you wish to remain friends with me, don’t praise anybody.  You tell me that the Venus de’ Medici is beautiful, or Jacob Omnium is tall.  Que diable!  Can’t I judge for myself?  Haven’t I eyes and a foot-rule?  I don’t think the Venus is so handsome, since you press me.  She is pretty, but she has no expression.  And as for Mr. Omnium, I can see much taller men in a fair for twopence.”

“And so,” I said, turning round to Mr. Sterne, “you are actually jealous of Mr. Fielding?  O you men of letters, you men of letters!  Is not the world (your world, I mean) big enough for all of you?”

I often travel in my sleep.  I often of a night find myself walking in my night-gown about the gray streets.  It is awkward at first, but somehow nobody makes any remark.  I glide along over the ground with my naked feet.  The mud does not wet them.  The passers-by do not tread on them.  I am wafted over the ground, down the stairs, through the doors.  This sort of travelling, dear friends, I am sure you have all of you indulged.

Well, on the night in question (and, if you wish to know the precise date, it was the 31st of September last), after having some little conversation with Mr. Sterne in our bedroom, I must have got up, though I protest I don’t know how, and come down stairs with him into the coffee-room of the “Hotel Dessein,” where the moon was shining, and a cold supper was laid out.  I forget what we had—­“vol-au-vent d’oeufs de Phenix—­agneau aux pistaches a la Barmecide,”—­what matters what we had?

“As regards supper this is certain, the less you have of it the better.”

That is what one of the guests remarked,—­a shabby old man, in a wig, and such a dirty, ragged, disreputable dressing-gown that I should have been quite surprised at him, only one never is surprised in dr——­ under certain circumstances.

“I can’t eat ’em now,” said the greasy man (with his false old teeth, I wonder he could eat anything).  “I remember Alvanley eating three suppers once at Carlton House—­one night de petite comite.”

“Petit comite, sir,” said Mr. Sterne.

“Dammy, sir, let me tell my own story my own way.  I say, one night at Carlton house, playing at blind hookey with York, Wales, Tom Raikes, Prince Boothby, and Dutch Sam the boxer, Alvanley ate three suppers, and won three and twenty hundred pounds in ponies.  Never saw a fellow with such an appetite, except Wales in his good time.  But he destroyed the finest digestion a man ever had with maraschino, by Jove—­always at it.”