If you had not soon beaten up my quarters, I should have tried, somehow, to find out yours.

What have you been about all this time?
Where are you located?
What mischief have you been perpetrating since our expedition to the _guingette_ on the river?
Come, you have a thousand things to tell me!" M.de Simoncourt looked at his watch--a magnificent affair, decorated with a costly chain, and a profusion of pendant trifles--and threw the last-half of his cigar into the fireplace.
"You must excuse me, _mon cher_" said he.

"I have at least a dozen calls to make before dinner." Dalrymple rose, readily enough, and took a roll of bank-notes from the cash-box.
"If you are going," he said, "I may as well hand over the price of that Tilbury.

When will they send it home ?" "To-morrow, undoubtedly." "And I am to pay fifteen hundred franks for it!" "Just half its value!" observed M.de Simoncourt, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Dalrymple smiled, counted the notes, and handed them to his friend.
"Fifteen hundred may be half its cost," said he; "but I doubt if I am paying much less than its full value.

Just see that these are right." M.de Simoncourt ruffled the papers daintily over, and consigned them to his pocket-book.