With All This, La Fleur Had A Small Cast Of The Coxcomb, - But He Seemed At First Sight To Be More A Coxcomb Of Nature Than Of Art; And, Before I Had Been Three Days In Paris With Him, - He Seemed To Be No Coxcomb At All.

MONTREUIL. The next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I delivered to him the key of my portmanteau,

With an inventory of my half a dozen shirts and silk pair of breeches, and bid him fasten all upon the chaise, - get the horses put to, - and desire the landlord to come in with his bill.

C'est un garcon de bonne fortune, said the landlord, pointing through the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the postilion was leading out the horses. La Fleur kissed all their hands round and round again, and thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would bring them all pardons from Rome.

- The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town, and there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where the want of him will not be felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued he, "he is always in love." - I am heartily glad of it, said I, - 'twill save me the trouble every night of putting my breeches under my head. In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another:

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 36 of 149
Words from 9846 to 10145 of 40886