It would be different if we were strangers, but _we_ that have sported with you since you wore frilled trousers and a bib--come now--did you, or did you not, kneel three times a day, like the prophet Daniel, looking eastward or westward, or whichever way it _did_ look, and yearn for us, and Jacky, and the bun-loaf--come, now ?" "Well, yes," say I, reluctantly making the admission.

"I do not say that I did not! Of course, after having been used to you all my life, it would have been very odd if I had not missed you rather badly; but that is a very different thing from being _sick of him_!" "Well, we will not say _sick_," returns Algy, with the air of one who is making a handsome concession, "it is a disagreeable, bilious expression, but it would be useless to try and convince me that _any_ human affection could stand the wear and tear of twenty-eight whole days of an absolute duet and not be rather the worse for it!" "But it was _not_ an absolute duet," cry I, raising my voice a little, and speaking with some excitement; "you are talking about what you do not know! you are quite wrong." "Well, it is not the first time in my life that I have been that," he says, philosophically; "but come--who did you the Christian office of interrupting it?
tell us." "I told you in my letters," say I, rather petulantly.

"I certainly mentioned--yes, I know I did--we happened at Dresden to fall in with a friend of the general's--at least, a person he knew." "A person he knew?
What kind of a person?
Man or woman ?" "Man." "Old or young ?" "Young." "Ugly or pretty ?" "Pretty," answer I, laughing.

"Ah! what a rage he would be in, if he could hear such an epithet applied to him!" "A young, well-looking, man-friend!" says Algy, slowly recapitulating all my admissions as he lies gently puffing on the rug beside me.
"Well ?" "_Well!_" echo I, rather snappishly.

"Nothing! only that I wanted to show you that it was not quite such a _duet_ as you imagined! Of course--Dresden is not a big place--of course we met very often, and went here and there together." "And where was Sir Roger meanwhile ?" "Sir Roger was there, too, of course," reply I, still a little crossly, "except once or twice--certainly not more than twice--he said he did not feel inclined to come, and so we went without him." "You left him at home, in fact!" says Algy, with a rather malicious smile, "out of harm's way, while you and the young friend marauded about the town together; it must have been very lively for him, poor man! Oh, fie! Nancy, fie!" "We did not do any thing of the kind," cry I, now thoroughly vexed and uncomfortable.