"If I ever saw him before, may my next glass of wine choke me.

He got out of a cab just as I was passing near the bridge, and calling to me, said, 'Look at this letter; at half-past seven take it to the Duke de Champdoce, who lives by his stables in the road to the Forest.

Do you know the place ?' 'Yes,' I says, and then he slips the letter and a five-franc piece into my hand, got back into the cab, and off he went." "What was the man like ?" asked he.
"Well, I can hardly say.

He wasn't young or old, or short or tall.
I recollect he had a gold watch-chain on, but that was about all I noticed." "Very well; you can be off." At this moment Norbert's anger was turned against the writer of the letter only, for he did not place the smallest credence in the accusations against his wife.

If he did not love her, he at any rate respected her.