As servants, both of us, the pleasantest news we can have any concern with is news that is connected with the happiness of our masters.

I have nothing to do with public affairs; and, being one of the old school, I make it my main object in life to mind my own business.

If our homely domestic politics have no interests for you, allow me to express my regret, and to wish you a very good-evening." "Pardon me, my dear sir, I have not the slightest respect for the old school, or the least sympathy with people who only mind their own business.

However, I accept your expressions of regret; I reciprocate your 'Good-evening'; and I trust to find you improved in temper, dress, manners, and appearance the next time I have the honor of meeting you.
Adieu, Monsieur Guillaume, and! _Vive la bagatelle!"_ These scraps of dialogue were interchanged on a lovely summer evening in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, before the back door of a small house which stood on the banks of the Seine, about three miles westward of the city of Rouen.

The one speaker was lean, old, crabbed and slovenly; the other was plump, young, oily-mannered and dressed in the most gorgeous livery costume of the period.