in France. He is a speculator. We can
scarcely realise the character in England to
its full extent, speculative as we are, for the
English projector generally confines himself
to one or two branches. The mammoth of
the ring stakes his thousands on the chances
of a horse race; the mastodon of the Stock
Exchange risks his tens of thousands in bonds in
and loans; the leviathan of the share-market
leaps madly over railroads to plunge into
gold mines; the colossus of Mark Lane
gambles furiously in corn. These speculate
in philanthropy; those in religion; these in
sending treacle to Jamaica; those in carrying
coals to Newcastle. But M. de Saint-Flamm is
all and everything. All is fish that comes to his
net: wherever there is a chance (and where
is there not?) he speculates upon it. He
speculates in asphalte pavements, in gold
mines, railways, water-works, home and
foreign funds, theatres, agricultural societies,
winter gardens, newspapers, pleasure gardens,
steam boats, charcoal burning, loan contracting,
marsh draining, and so. on. He is chairman
of an Association for marrying couples
in humble life at reduced rates; of a
Company for conveying emigrants to California;
for supplying lucifer matches at half the
usual price; of the "Literary Pantechnicon"
or Society for publishing translations
of Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, and Xenophon
at two sous per volume. He is the sort of
man that if you took him a proposal for
extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, or
supplying the blind with green spectacles, would
clap down a provisional committee on the
back of an envelope, and register the scheme
before you could say Jack Robinson.

I never knew but one Englishman who had
the same Crichtonian aptitude for speculation.
He was always, when he met you, going to
borrow twenty-seven thousand pounds for the
Duke of Seedyland, which must be had before
seven o'clock this evening, by Jove; and was
the first newspaper proprietor who gave a
gingham umbrella and a bottle of blacking to
each quarterly subscriber. He broke his
heart in an unsuccessful attempt to establish
a soup kitchen in connection with a Dental
Surgery for the Million and General
Tooth-drawing Company, and I have never seen his
equal.

M. de Saint-Flamm's apartments are
magnificently furnished. There might be a little
more elegance, perhaps, and a little more
good taste; but you could not find a greater
profusion of gilding, crimson damask,
marble-covered furniture, and plate-glass (taking
space into consideration) anywhere out of the
Tuileries. There is a deluge of clocks, all of
different size and make, which, as they all
strike the hour at different times, produce a
charming diversity of effect. Engravings of
rather questionable taste and execution,
enshrined in costly frames, hang on the walls.
Porcelain monsters and curiosities crowd
the mantel-pieces and consoles. There is a
circular table on claw feet, with a marble top,
inlaid with Italian mosaics, like a tailor's book
of waistcoat patterns. There are ottomans,
causeuses, dormeuses, refinements of couches
for every depravity of lolling, lounging, sitting,
or reclining. Finally, there is M. de Saint-Flamm's
bed-chamber (which he never sleeps
in), a little paradise of Persian carpets,
lion-skins, alabaster, and satin, and muslin
curtains held up by gilt Cupids. The ceiling
was painted by Henri Baron, and cost five
thousand francs. A genuine Raphael hangs
in the embrasure of the window, with a
genuine Correggio as a pendant. M. de Saint-Flamm
speculates largely in pictures.

The speculator keeps a brougham, a cabriolet,
an English groom, and a valet-de-chambre,
who wears elaborately embroidered shirts,
and whom I took for a marquis, meeting him
on the stairs one day. M. de Saint-Flamm
dines usually at the Café Anglais, or at the
Rocher de Cancale; but he gives sumptuous
dinners, occasionally, at home (there is a
kitchen in his suite of apartments), when
some friendly duke lends him his cook, and
he dazzles his guests with a gorgeous service
of plate. He is a bachelor, but no man ever
had a larger collection of three-cornered notes
on pink paper than he has, nor possessed, I
suppose, a larger female acquaintance. Is he
rich? Are the grand dinners paid for? Is
the furniture his own? Ma foi, the questions
are facile to ask, but difficult to answer. He
is a speculator; and though perhaps he may
be worth a million of francs to-day, he may
sleep in the debtor's prison of Clichy to-morrow.
M. Stidmann looks upon him as
a Crœsus; and, as I saw him throw a
five-franc piece to a ragged little organ grinder
the other day, I don't think that he is
avaricious.

We must mount another flight of stairs, for
we have to do with the second-floor lodgers.
And imprimis, of these let me introduce M. le
Docteur Jacounet, a mild, pale, elderly young
man, with a prematurely bald head,
gold-rimmed spectacles, an olive-coloured surtout
reaching to his heels, and a broad-brimmed
hat. Each of his wan cheeks is ornamented
with a scalene triangle of hay-coloured whisker,
met at the apex by the straggling tufts of his
straw-coloured hair. He is blessed with a
wife, a sparkling little brunette from the Pays
des Vosges, who has the olive complexion, the
piercing black eyes, and symmetrically arched
eyebrows of Lorraine, and who has borne him
six children—all alive, all with shock heads
of straw-coloured hair, and to find bread and
soup for whom the worthy Doctor must, till
lately, have been sorely puzzled. He was,
when a medical student, one of the noisiest
and most racketty in the Quartier Latin; was
the admiration of the grisettes, the terror of
the Chaumière, and the cynosure of cafés in
the Place de l'Odéon, and the Ru de la
Harpe. He wore the longest beard and the
nattiest velveteen gabardine, with the broadest