“ Dear Old Tim ” (short for Timon)⁠—“I am off you see⁠—gone like a shot. Alfred and I intended to be married in this way almost from the first; we never meant to be spliced in the humdrum way of other people; Alfred has too much spirit for that, and so have I⁠— Dieu merci ! Do you know, Alfred, who used to call you ‘the dragon,’ has seen so much of you during the last few months, that he begins to feel quite friendly towards you. He hopes you won’t miss him now that he has gone; he begs to apologize for any little trouble he may have given you. He is afraid he rather inconvenienced you once when he came upon you in the grenier , just as you were reading a letter seemingly of the most special interest; but he could not resist the temptation to give you a start, you appeared so wonderfully taken up with your correspondent. En revanche, he says you once frightened him by rushing in for a dress or a shawl, or some other chiffon, at the moment when he had struck a light, and was going to take a quiet whiff of his cigar, while waiting for me.