Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/88

 taker, and dogged the other's footsteps, croaking out lugubriously every other minute, "I'm waiting for you! I'm waiting for you!" The party broke up at nine in the morning, with a wild galop in the street.

And now events conspired to work an important change in Dumas's life. So far, the author of "Antony," under the influence of Goëthe and Byron, had "posed" in his writings, as a Manfred or a Mephistopheles; and with folded arms and cynic laugh had affected to deny, and disdain, the virtues and pleasures of the world. But one day Dumas wrote a begging-letter for his friend Lassailly, who, on reading the note, turned to its author with a stupefied air.

"Well," he said, "this is comical!"

"What is?"

"Why, you have wit!"

"Why shouldn't I? Envious fellow!"

"Well, you're probably the first man of five feet ninc who has ever been witty!"

Dumas has himself defined and described his own gaiety. "Some folk," he says, "are gay because they're well, or have a good digestion, or have nothing to worry about that is the ordinary gaiety. But mine is invariable gaiety, which shines through disturbing influences, through troubles, through danger itself."

The young writer had been unconscious of the