art pardoned; but beware how you offend
again." Master Spartacus's face at once
brightened into a miraculous laugh; and
rolling out of his prison he came and kissed
his lord's hand, and then squatted down by
the side of Cimber. At this moment appeared
Scevola, also a black, with a tray of
sweetmeats.

All these things must have given us a
puzzled appearance; for, anticipating our
curiosity—for which we were grateful,
since there is nothing so polite as to answer
a question before it is asked—M. Armoire
having cleared his lungs of a vast cloud of
smoke observed, "You see I am taking the
first step towards civilising these savages,
by giving them decent Christian names,
and inoculating them with notions of
independence." Our eyes glanced towards the
basket. "What you are about to remark is
very true," continued the lord of Rhoda,
"but somebody has said that the best preparation
for liberty is to learn obedience;
besides, in my Republic, I shall not allow
gluttony and theft; and Spartacus has every
abominable instinct that a child is capable of.
Not a day passes that he does not commit
some petty villany or other; and the more I
punish him, the worse he seems to become."

The worthy gentleman's commonwealth
was forgetting his beginning. We did not,
however, make the observation. He was
one of those pedants of progress so often
met with among Frenchmen—and in other
countries too—who believe they have done a
great deal when they have given new names
to men and things; and are yet, in the practical
relations of life, reduced to act like all
other vulgar mortals. M. Armoire, in his
small, harmless way, was an exact type of
all the reformers whom the Great Pasha
gathered around him. They taught him to
use the vocabulary of civilisation; and must
have been surprised at the ingenuity with
which he applied their fine words to the
pieces of his barbarous mechanism.

M. Armoire was one of those St. Simonians
who, after the dispersion of that celebrated
school, went to seek their fortunes in Egypt.
He did not, however, belong to the first
invasion which went about with their long
flowing locks in search of the Free Woman;
but had already given up all those extravagances
before he saw the Nile. He remained,
however, fervently attached to ideas of
liberty; and, although he did express his
feelings in a grotesque manner, quite touched
us by his enthusiasm. The pleasantest thing,
however, was to see that the little black
triumvirate—in spite of prison baskets and
oddities—were sincerely attached to the
worthy gentleman. This could be divined
by their looks as well as by the eagerness
with which they obeyed the slightest hint.
It is unnecessary to add that they were
slaves; for M. Armoire had never thought of
even nominally emancipating them.

Whilst we were smoking our pipes a great
black fellow—who answered to the name of
Mansoor, and had probably rebelled against
being newly baptised—came out from under
the trees with a whip of hippopotamus hide
in one hand and three slates in the other.
The three little niggers at once began to look
very serious. School-hours had begun; and
it was evident they would have preferred
basking all their lives in the sunshine without
knowing the shape of a letter. However,
they obediently squatted down in a semi-circle
and did not giggle very much whilst
their master, who had a great turban on his
head as big as a millstone, and looked like a
true Wezeer of some Arabian tale, set them
their copies, "You see," observed my host,
"that I take care of their intellects as well
as their morals. They are tolerable proficients
in reading; but of what use is it to
a miserable Mahommedan to learn to read
after all? They have not a notion of the
beauty of republican principles."

We said he might choose a more useful
book; which he doubted. After a few more
puffs he asked us to go with him and be
introduced to his lady. We complied, expecting
to see a second Madame Roland.
The house was a neat little cottage in a semi-European
style; but, as we approached, there
was a regular Eastern hurry-scurry of women
at sight of a stranger. M. Armoire, however,
stopped the retreat by calling out in a stern
voice, "Fatimahl" We thought he had
married a Moslem woman, and wondered he
had not new-named her. Portia or Cornelia
would have agreed with his notions. Fatimah
came forward, however, looking very foolish in
her embroidered jacket and muslin trowsers.
We at once saw through the disguise; and
recognised a regular Provençal beauty. The
eccentric Armoire, forgetting his principles,
had discarded the common appellatives of
Marie Francoise to adopt the more romantic
and euphonious Fatimah. He half apologised
by saying it was a fancy or whim, "an isolated
fact!" as he expressed it.

We soon knew that Armoire, after having
spent some years in Egypt, had found that in
that country especially it is not good for man
to be alone. His friends had proposed
various native matches; but, as he said, he
thought it more safe to send home for a
second-cousin, whom he had made love to
formerly, and who had not seemed very "anti-pathic
to his person." Fatimah blushed and
looked pretty. So it was a love-match.
None the worse for that. The young lady's
parents had at first objected; but what
woman wills—at any rate there she was,
and there also was a little fellow about a
year old scrambling on the floor in a little fez
without a tassel. We asked his name. The
father became very red; the mother laughed;
and the hopeful son himself betrayed the
dreadful secret. He was called "Jean,"
otherwise "Jack."