Emperor always crossing the Alps on a white
horse, mocking himself of the thunder and
lightning? I tell thee, ganache, that still waters
run deep, that l'eau qui dort is the most
dangerous, and that the great art of capitalists
consists in never appearing to have any money.
My uncle from Basle was a capitalist. In the
commerce of grains he acquired millions; yet
to look at him thou wouldst not have thought
that he had possessed two red liards to rub one
against another. What, yet another game at
dominoes? Come, then, phenomenon of temerity,
and I will play thee for the third chopine."

On a particular morning which it is desirable to
fix in the reader's mind, Jean Baptiste Constant
was breakfasting at. the Café Restaurant Chesterfield,
and he had company. Three sat down to
breakfast with him. He had first invited the
patron Rataplan to be a partaker of the meal, and
the third guest was a florid well-looking gentleman
enough, with very large black whiskers,
now slightly inclining to grey, and who was very
gorgeously attired in a frogged and braided
surtout, and a cap with a tassel of gold bullion.
This gentleman spoke most European languages
with equal fluency, and with equal incorrectness.
He was a travelling courier by profession, and
his name was Franz Stimm.

The three men had evidently taken a copious
meal of oysters, omelette, and cold roast beef,
washed down by English bottled stout (few
foreigners who have visited England, be it for
ever so short a time, surmount the predilection
they acquire for the brown beer of Albion)
and some of Rataplan's best red wine. They
were now at the stage of coffee, brandy, and
cigars, and were unmistakably enjoying
themselves.

"I did not like de goffees zo much as de
joggolates," Mr. Stimm observed, between whiffs
of his very powerful cigar; "de joggolates is
più graziosos, and besser vor the stomjacks; but
de zigares is not goot mit de joggolates nor de
gocos, and de goffees tastes him besser."

"You are always talking of your stomach,
friend Stimm," Constant observed. "I wish
you would talk to me about that little girl you
met, ever so many years ago, on board the
Boulogne steamer, when you were travelling with
your general."

"Vat vor it is goot to talk about de liddle
gals?" replied Franz Stimm, with a sigh. "We
shall not none of us never see her again. She
goms like de shadow of a liddle vairy, and,
pouf! she go away like dis ring of dobbacco-
smoke dat go up do de zeiling and vade avay
nobody can say vere de debbel vere to."

"And yet all of us would give thousands,
millions—at least, much that is valuable to us,"
continued Constant, " to meet that child. Child!
she must be grown into a woman by this time."

"And a peautiful ones, too," interposed the
courier. "She was the angelikest liddle
zylphide mine eyes ever did light itself upon."

"For the child," Rataplan said, "that!" He
snapped his fingers as he spoke. "I have no
more children, and care little to hear about
them. Yet would I give something to find that
woman. The tigress! the fury! the abandoned
creature, lost to all sense of morality, honour,
decency, virtue."

"She owes you money, Papa Rataplan." This
was from Constant.

"Twenty sovereigns sterling. She never paid
her bill the last time she descended at the Hôtel
Rataplan. It is a flagrant injustice. It is an
infamy. She defrauded, swindled me, out of my
dues. She had the finest vins of Champagne, and
of the little wines of Burgundy. She owes me
even for the cigarettes she smoked, the
depraved and epicurean bacchante! Her flight
without discharging my addition was the last
act of perfidy to which, in a perfidious and
shameless land, the miserable Rataplan had to
submit. But I will be avenged. I will demand
justice. Yet shall the tribunals be seized of the
details of this most tenebrous and scandalous
affair. I desire to re-enter into my funds. I
demand the provisional arrestation, the prise de
corps, against this woman sans foi ni loi." And
Rataplan struck the table with his clenched fist,
and filled himself another petit verre.

"You are taking la goutte too early, Papa
Rataplan," Constant said, discreetly withdrawing
the decanter of cognac from the excited
landlord's reach. "Suppose we finish these
libations and take a walk."

"Vid all my hearts," Mr. Stimm acquiesced,
rising. " My heads is strongs enough for much
more gouttes, but we gan dake them in de open
airs, and Franz Stimms can then have the
bleasure of reciprocifying dis most gharming
hospitalities. Gom and smokes in the oben air, and
we can talk about de liddle gals. Blezz her
liddle heart."

"But the establishment," pleaded Rataplan,
nervously.

"The establishment," said Constant, gaily,
"can be left to the waiters and the dame du
comptoir for an hour or two. The Café Restaurant
Chesterfield won't run away. Allons,
messieurs, I am at your service."

"Gom and dalk about de liddle gals,"
repeated the courier.

  IN (AND OUT OF) THE DANISH CAMP*
* See page 269

IT is said that travellers are of all people those
who most dispense with ceremony, and that
under no circumstances is acquaintanceship so
rapidly made as on a journey. This is a
mistake; you more completely abandon ceremony
and form acquaintanceship much more rapidly
on the field. You know men, if I may so
express it, before you have seen them, and you
yourself make equal demands of good-fellowship
from others. What soldier, or officer indeed,
stands on any ceremony in asking from a
comrade, even when meeting him for the first time,
the help which he needs at the moment, be it in
the form of a drop of brandy, a cigar, a sheet of