In such a room one should have been waited on by boys crowned with roses, and have partaken only of classic dishes--of Venafran olives or oysters from the Lucrine lake, washed down with Massic, or Chian, or honeyed Falernian.
Some half-dozen gentlemen, chatting over their coffee, bowed to Dalrymple when we came in.

They were talking of the war in Algiers, and especially of the gallantry of a certain Vicomte de Caylus, in whose deeds they seemed to take a more than ordinary interest.
"Rode single-handed right through the enemy's camp," said a bronzed, elderly man, with a short, gray beard.
"And escaped without a scratch," added another, with a tiny red ribbon at his button-hole.
"He comes of a gallant stock," said a third.

"I remember his father at Austerlitz--literally cut to pieces at the head of his squadron." "You are speaking of de Caylus," said Dalrymple.

"What news of him from Algiers ?" "This--that having volunteered to carry some important despatches to head-quarters, he preferred riding by night through Abd-el-Kader's camp, to taking a _detour_ by the mountains," replied the first speaker.
"A wild piece of boyish daring," said Dalrymple, somewhat drily.

"I presume he did not return by the same road ?" "I should think not.