THE RIDDLE. PARIS. W HEN La Fleur came up to wait upon me at fupper, he told me how sorry the master of the hotel was for his affront to me in bidding me change my lodgings. A man who values a good night's reft will not lay down with enmity in his heart if he can help it-So I bid La Fleur tell the mafter of the hotel, that I was forry on my fide for the occafion I had given himI 2 and and you may tell him, if you will, La Fleur, added I, that if the young woman should call again, I shall not fee her. This was a facrifice not to him, but myself, having refolved, after fo narrow an escape, to run no more rifks, but to leave Paris, if it was poffible, with all the virtue Henter'd in. Ceft deroger à nobleffe, Monfieur, faid La Fleur, making me a bow down to the ground as he faid it--Et encore Monfieur, faid he, may change his fentiments-and if (par hazard) he fhould like to amufe himfelf I find no amufement in it, faid I, interrupting him In an hour's time he came to put me to bed, and was more than commonly officious fomething hung upon his lips to fay to me, or afk me, which he could not get off: I could not conceive what it was; and indeed gave myself little trouble to find it out, as I had another riddle fo much more interefting upon my mind, which was that of the man's afking. charity before the door of the hotel -I would have given any thing to have got to the bottom of it; and that, not out of curiofitytis fo low a principle of enquiry, in ge neral, I would not purchase the gratification of it with a two-fous piecebut a fecret, I thought, which fo foon and fo certainly foften'd the heart of every woman you came near, was a fecret at least equal to the philofopher's stone: had I had both the Indies, I would have given up one to have been master of it. I tofs'd and turn'd it almost all night long in my brains to no manner of purpose; and when I awoke in the morning, I found my fpirit as much troubled with my dreams, as ever the king of Babylon had been |