Mignon Author:Forrester Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. "I follow a more easy and, in my opinion, a wiser course, namely, to inveigh against the levity of the female sex, their fickleness, their double ... more »dealing, their rotten promises, their broken faith; and, finally, their want of judgment in bestowing their affections. These, gentlemen, are my reasons for the discourse you heard me address to my goat, whom (because she is a female) I despise, although she be the best of the fold." Cervantes. Mr. Conyngham takes out his latch-key and opens the door of a pleasantlooking house in Piccadilly, facing the Green Park. He precedes his friend up two flights of stairs and throws open the door of a large, airy room. " This is a great improvement upon your last quarters," remarks Sir Tristram, as he enters. " Yes. I begin to feel the want of a home now. Club life is dull and lonely after a certain time : one's contemporaries get married or die. 'Marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.' I get a better dinner at home, and don't have to wait for it, and I like to sit at my window afterwards and smoke. I've got used to the noise, and the look-out over the Park is charming." The room is a thorough man's room. By that I do not mean a young man's room such as has been described by the novelist ad nauseam,—an assemblage of foils, whips, guns, boxing-gloves, cigar-chests, etc., etc., mixed up with pictures of favorite racers and sirens more or less lightly clad; but I mean the room of a man who has outgrown the swagger and affectations of boyhood and settled down into a steady-going, respectable member of society. Fred Conyngham's room is the perfection of neatness and comfort; everything is handsome, solid, and useful; there is nothing " gim-crack" throughout its length and breadth. The only indication tha...« less