“I can’t speak English.  I like soup and good wine, and that is enough to keep me from your taverns.”

“I expect so, with your French tastes.”

“You will confess that they are not bad tastes.”

“You are right, for, good Englishman as I am, I get on very well in Paris.”

He burst out laughing when I told him how I had dispatched a score of wenches at the “Staven Tavern,” and that my disappointment was due to him.

“I did not tell you what names to send for, and I was wrong.”

“Yes, you ought to have told me.”

“But even if I did they wouldn’t have come, for they are not at the orders of the procurers.  If you will promise to pay them as I do, I will give you some tickets which will make them come.”

“Can I have them here?”

“Just as you like.”

“That will be most convenient for me.  Write out the tickets and let them know French if you can.”

“That’s the difficulty; the prettiest only speak English.”

“Never mind, we shall understand each other well enough for the purpose I dare say.”

He wrote several tickets for four and six guineas each; but one was marked twelve guineas.

“She is doubly pretty, is she?” said I.

“Not exactly, but she has cuckolded a duke of Great Britain who keeps her, and only uses her once or twice a month.”

“Would you do me the honour of testing the skill of my cook?”

“Certainly, but I can’t make an appointment.”

“And supposing I am out.”

“I’ll go to the tavern.”

Having nothing better to do I sent Jarbe to one of the four-guinea wenches, telling him to advise her that she would dine with me.  She came.  She did not attract me sufficiently to make me attempt more than some slight toying.  She went away well pleased with her four guineas, which she had done nothing to earn.  Another wench, also at four guineas, supped with me the following evening.  She had been very pretty, and, indeed, was so still, but she was too melancholy and quiet for my taste, and I could not makeup my mind to tell her to undress.

The third day, not feeling inclined to try another ticket, I went to Covent Garden, and on meeting an attractive young person I accosted her in French, and asked her if she would sup with me.

“How much will you give me at dessert?”

“Three guineas.”

“Come along.”

After the play I ordered a good supper for two, and she displayed an appetite after mine own heart.  When we had supped I asked for her name and address, and I was astonished to find that she was one of the girls whom Lord Pembroke had assessed at six guineas.  I concluded that it was best to do one’s own business, or, at any rate, not to employ noblemen as agents.  As to the other tickets, they procured me but little pleasure.  The twelve-guinea one, which I had reserved for the last, as a choice morsel, pleased me the least of all, and I did not care to cuckold the noble duke who kept her.