Dear ladies, as your excellent Sheridan said, I go⁠—and leave my character behind me.”

He got up, put the cage on the table, and paused for a moment to count the mice in it. “One, two, three, four⁠—Ha!” he cried, with a look of horror, “where, in the name of Heaven, is the fifth⁠—the youngest, the whitest, the most amiable of all⁠—my Benjamin of mice!”

Neither Laura nor I were in any favorable disposition to be amused. The Count’s glib cynicism had revealed a new aspect of his nature from which we both recoiled. But it was impossible to resist the comical distress of so very large a man at the loss of so very small a mouse. We laughed in spite of ourselves; and when Madame Fosco rose to set the example of leaving the boathouse empty, so that her husband might search it to its remotest corners, we rose also to follow her out.