But nothey fell, even more rapidly than they rose, till their grace and their cultivation, for them they could not lose, made them the willing ministers to the luxury, the frivolity, the sentimentality, the vice of the whole old worldthe Scapia or Figaro of the old worldinfinitely able, but with all his ability consecrated to the service of his own base self.

And the instant the pest opened his lips our man in reserve would shove the Figaro at him.