If our homely domestic
politics have no interests for you, allow me to express my
regret, and to wish you a very good-evening."
"Pardon me, my dear sir, I have not the slightest respect for the
old school, or the least sympathy with people who only mind their
own business. However, I accept your expressions of regret; I
reciprocate your 'Good-evening'; and I trust to find you improved
in temper, dress, manners, and appearance the next time I have
the honor of meeting you. Adieu, Monsieur Guillaume, and! _Vive
la bagatelle!"_
These scraps of dialogue were interchanged on a lovely summer
evening in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, before the
back door of a small house which stood on the banks of the Seine,
about three miles westward of the city of Rouen. The one speaker
was lean, old, crabbed and slovenly; the other was plump, young,
oily-mannered and dressed in the most gorgeous livery costume of
the period. The last days of genuine dandyism were then rapidly
approaching all over the civilized world; and Monsieur Justin
was, in his own way, dressed to perfection, as a living
illustration of the expiring glories of his epoch.
After the old servant had left him, he occupied himself for a few
minutes in contemplating, superciliously enough, the back view of
the little house before which he stood. Judging by the windows,
it did not contain more than six or eight rooms in all.
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