law long since, he twirled his moustache
instead.

"May heaven grant," said the Commodore
to himself, " that the poor fellow has really
succeeded in making his escape." Then
he added, aloud, " Sparkes has no doubt
lost us."

"Lost us," cried the concierge, furiously,
"lost us!—yes, to find himself in London.
I am ruined, destroyed. Citizen, citizen,
I am a poor man, the father of a family,
I have a head—I know I shall lose it—let
us hasten home like the very devil."

He seized the Commodore's arm tightly as
he spoke, and quickened his pace; and Sir
Sidney had no alternative but to walk as fast
as his companion. They ascended the Boulevard,
and then rapidly descended the Rue du
Temple.

But the tribulations of Citizen Lasne had
not yet reached their culminating point. At
the top of the Rue Meslay they found the
thoroughfare obstructed by a numerous crowd.
Men of equivocal appearance hovered about,
and formed suspicious groups. Some carts
and barrows had been over-turned in the
road-way, evidently with the intention of
forming a barricade. Lasne cast round him
a desperate look. A gaoler, he scented a
conspiracy from afar off.

"And where may you be taking this honest
man, citizen," asked a man, placing himself
directly in Lasne's way. The man wore a
coarse blue blouse, but the ill-buttoned collar
showed something most suspiciously like a
lace shirtfrill beneath.

"Room there! " cried Lasne, to whom
despair lent courage.

"You're in a hurry, Citizen Donkey. If I
relieve you of the care of that ci-devant who
is hanging on your arm, don't you think you
could walk faster?"

' Room there! " repeated the gaoler in a
hoarse voice. " Room in the name of the
Directory, in the name of the Republic—"

"One and indivisible! " interrupted the
man in the blouse. " We know all about it.
Hallo! attention there!"

The groups closed up. Citizen Lasne felt
himself hustled, buffetted, half-strangled.
Then he was violently dragged down a bye-
street and thrust into a doorway. When he
recovered his scattered senses, he was alone
—the Commodore had disappeared.

"Oh my children, my poor children,"
murmured Citizen Lasne, pursuing his solitary
walk towards the Temple. " What will
become of them? Oh accursed be Pitt and
Coburg! O thrice accursed be the wine of
Porto!"

A fat man in a fright is not a pleasant
sight to see. He always puts me in mind of
a pig just poniarded by the butcher, and
running about in extremis. The legs of
Citizen Lasne quivered under him. A cold
perspiration broke out all over him. He felt
like a lump of ice in his backbone. The ends
of his hair pricked his forehead; the singing
in his ears loudened into a yell. The pores of
his flesh opened and shut like oysters; and
the whole of his inside became incontinent
one mass of molten lead.

As he neared the Temple, the opposite sides
of the street formed themselves into a horrible
proscenium, and in the middle an infernal
drama was being acted. He saw, painted all
in red, somebody having the hair at the back
of his head shaved off by somebody else
hideously like M. Samson, otherwise called
Charlot, the public executioner; then somebody
being strapped upon a plank and thrust
head downwards between two posts, in grooves
of which ran a huge triangular axe. And
the axe fell with a " thud," and somebody's
head fell into a red basket full of sawdust,
and the fiends that were yelling in his ear
called out " Citizen Lasne, Citizen Lasne, agent
of Pitt et Coburg." And the devil danced
before the theatre, playing upon a pipe.

The unhappy gaoler reached the Temple
gate. He rang and was about to enter, when
he heard a voice behind him.

"Will you permit me also to enter, Monsieur
Lasne?"

The citizen could hardly believe his ears.
Much harder was it for him to believe his
eyes, when, turning round, he recognised Sir
Sidney Smith.

"May I be consumed," (he used a stronger
term than this), cried Citizen Lasne, " if the
word of a gentleman is not worth all the bolts
and bars in the Temple."

Notwithstanding his high eulogium upon a
gentleman's word, Citizen Lasne did not forget
to see the bolts and bars properly secured
as soon as he got inside. But a vigorous
pressure from without prevented the closing
of the great door, and a voice was heard
crying,—

"Let me in! let me in! 'Tis I, Sparkes."

"And where the wonder,' (he used even a
stronger term this time), " do you come from?"
asked Citizen Lasne, when the Commodore's
body-servant had been admitted.

"Where! why from looking after you to be
sure. Do you call this fraternity and equality,
locking a man out of his own prison. A
pretty country, where, instead of prisoners
running away from the gaolers, the gaolers
run away from the prisoners."

Citizen Lasne was too delighted at the safe
recovery of his prisoners to resent Mr.
Sparkes's reproaches. He insisted upon lighting
the Commodore to his apartments; he
overwhelmed him with compliments and
thanks. He positively wanted to embrace
him. The Commodore repulsed him gently.

"You owe me nothing, M. Lasne," he said.
"I had promised, I have kept my word. But
dating from this moment I withdraw my
parole."

"Wait till to-morrow," exclaimed Lasne, in
a supplicating voice. " Only wait till
tomorrow, Commodore, I'm so sleepy."