"Have you been Mephistopheles ?" "What is Mephistopheles ?" asked Carlotta.
"The devil," said Pasquale, "who made Sir Marcus young again." "Oh, that's me," cried Carlotta, clapping her hands.

"He does not read in big books any longer.

Oh, I was so frightened when I first came." (I must say she hid her terrors pretty effectually.) "He was so wise, and always reading and writing, and I thought he was fifty.

And now he is not wise at all, and he said two, three days ago I had made him twenty-five." "If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear," Judith remarked in her most charming manner, "in another year you will have brought him down to long clothes and a feeding-bottle." Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously.

I laughed too, out of courtesy, at Judith's bitter sarcasm, and turned the conversation, but Pasquale was not to be baulked of his toast.
"Here's to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger and younger every day." We clinked glasses.