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"Nonsense," said I; "why I was repeating, to the best of my recollection, what I heard you say on a former occasion.""If ever I talked such stuff," said Francis Ardry, "I was a fool; and indeed I cannot deny that I have been one: no, there's no denying that I have been a fool.What do you think? that false Annette has cruelly abandoned me.""Well," said I, "perhaps you have yourself to thank for her having done so; did you never treat her with coldness, and repay her marks of affectionate interest with strange fits of eccentric humour?""Lord! how little you know of women," said Francis Ardry;"had I done as you suppose, I should probably have possessed her at the present moment.I treated her in a manner diametrically opposite to that.I loaded her with presents, was always most assiduous to her, always at her feet, as Imay say, yet she nevertheless abandoned me - and for whom? Iam almost ashamed to say - for a fiddler."I took a glass of wine, Francis Ardry followed my example, and then proceeded to detail to me the treatment which he had experienced from Annette, and from what he said, it appeared that her conduct to him had been in the highest degree reprehensible; notwithstanding he had indulged her in everything, she was never civil to him, but loaded him continually with taunts and insults, and had finally, on his being unable to supply her with a sum of money which she had demanded, decamped from the lodgings which he had taken for her, carrying with her all the presents which at various times he had bestowed upon her, and had put herself under the protection of a gentleman who played the bassoon at the Italian Opera, at which place it appeared that her sister had lately been engaged as a danseuse.My friend informed me that at first he had experienced great agony at the ingratitude of Annette, but at last had made up his mind to forget her, and, in order more effectually to do so, had left London with the intention of witnessing a fight, which was shortly coming off at a town in these parts, between some dogs and a lion; which combat, he informed me, had for some time past been looked forward to with intense eagerness by the gentlemen of the sporting world.