quiet, gentle women are; what proficients in
roguery a roguish husband can make them;
what a very right arm of help they are in
good or evil—true as steel in the darkest
adversity!

The days rolled on, however, and all
things must come to an end with time.
Inquisitive persons began to remark, that
His Highness's visitors were all men of
Constantinople, and that neither his ambassador,
or any other considerable person among the
Franks, appeared to be aware of his existence,
or called upon him—except the charge
d'affaires of Tombuctoo—and his character
as a Lothario was so well known, and the
Princess was so pretty, that Mrs. Bouffet
thought his visits might as well have been
dispensed with.

At last one of the French attachés came in
from the country to lionise a party of his
compatriots, who wished to see the wonders
of the land, and this young gentleman having
nothing better before him, when the fatigues
of a long sight-seeing day were over, brought
his whole party to the hotel to dinner.
M. Bouffet who, like every one else in
Constantinople, had formerly had something to do
with one of the overgrown embassies, greeted
the young official with that mixture of respect
and familiarity which belongs peculiarly to
the manner of foreign upper-servants. When,
however, he mildly requested the attaché
not to light a cigar, because they were then
standing immediately under the windows of
Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Vendôme,
it was very natural that the young gentleman
should require "ce bon Bouffet'' to
explain himself more at length; which he did.
The attaché laughed, and opined that he had
been preciously taken in.

Bouffet persisted in vowing that his story
of the Prince's arrival and pretensions was
undeniable, for that he had trusted him to
the amount of many thousands of francs.
"But," resumed the puzzled Bouffet,
"Monsieur the Count would have an opportunity
of seeing the Prince in person at the table
d'hote, where His Highness was graciously
pleased to dine."

Poor Bouffet said " Highness," and
"graciously pleased" still, though terribly chap-
fallen. It is hard to give up a pleasant error,
and little people are quite as fond of "booing"
as great ones are of being " booed" to. Poor
Bouffet, he had been bragging of his guest
till the rival hotel (kept by two elderly
Englishwomen who quarrelled with everybody)
felt quite snubbed; and now, instead of
seeing his doors thronged with an admiring
crowd waiting for the Prince to go out, he
would become the ridicule of the whole
Christian quarter of Constantinople, and be
bitterly reproached by all who had trusted
his illustrious guest upon his braggadocio
representations.

The imposing presence and suite of the
Duke, however, at first even staggered the
attaché. He thought Bouffet might have
mistaken, and that he really saw before him
a man of royal rank. But, alas! on the left-
hand of His Highness sat his secretary, and
the moment that the eye of the attaché fell
upon him doubt was at an end, for he
recognised him as a rogue who had been convicted
of all sorts of dishonesty, and to whom he
had often given a few francs in contemptuous
pity. Looking also more fearlessly now at
the Princess, a smile broke over his face at
the recognition of an old acquaintance. Her
Royal Highness turned pale as she met the
arch look of this young gentleman; the Prince
bit his lips, and the bubble burst.

It was with a very different face that M.
Bouffet rendered himself on the following day
in the apartments of Monsieur. He came with
a long bill in hand, with his wife conversing in
audible whispers at the door; with the listening
servants behind him on the stairs;—but
who has not seen the admirable picture of
"Waiting for a remittance?"

The Duke de Vendôme was not staggered.
He did not quail even before the enraged eye
of his enemy. The conversation was long
between them; but Madame Bouffet at last
stole into the room; the whispering waiters
on the stairs were hushed; mine host's angry
voice died away into a respectful murmur.
The Prince would go to his bankers and pay
the bill within an hour or two.

He went out into the street with towering
crest and courteous bow; mine host thought
that Monsieur the Count (the attaché) had
"mocked himself with him," and that the
things he had heard to the disadvantage
of their Highnesses were a mauvaise
plaisanterie.

It was a wet day; for there are wet days
in Constantinople as well as in London. The
unpaved streets were like a quagmire—all
mud and slosh; but the erect and stately
form of the adventurer strode on to the
quarter where the merchants lived, and
went at once to the principal bankers, and
offered them a bill on Aldgate Pump for
a considerable sum. He knew he could
make no such mistake as to ask for a small
one.

"Had His Highness a letter of credit on
their house?"

"No. It had not yet reached him. The
war might have retarded the post."

The banker looked grave.

"Had he a letter from the ambassador?"

The Prince smiled. " What French nobleman
would know M. de——, the Ambassador
of the Republic!" said the Prince in his
grand way.

The banker, who like most men who have
made fortunes from very small beginnings,
was a legitimist, and who also, like most of
the Europeans in Constantinople, was at war
with his ambassador, acknowledged internally
that this excuse was a valid one. He was
just on the point of desiring his cashier to