he scythes and pitchforks of the peasants in the
Revolution of '93, when the count was emigre, as one says with reason
'skedadelle,' to England. Let them look the next time that they burn not
the chateau,--'bet your lif'!'"

"The chateau," said Dick, with affected carelessness. "Wot's the blamed
thing like?"

It was an old affair,--with armor and a picture-gallery,--and bricabrac.
He had never seen it. Not even as a boy,--it was kept very secluded
then. As a man--you understand--he could not ask the favor. The Comtes
de Fontonelles and himself were not friends. The family did not like a
cafe near their sacred gates,--where had stood only the huts of their
retainers. The American would observe that he had not called it "Cafe de
Chateau," nor "Cafe de Fontonelles,"--the gold of California would not
induce him. Why did he remain there? Naturally, to goad them! It was a
principle, one understood. To GOAD them and hold them in check! One kept
a cafe,--why not? One had one's principles,--one's conviction,--that was
another thing! That was the kind of "'air-pin"--was it not?--that HE,
Gustav Ribaud, was like!

Yet for all his truculent socialism, he was quick, obliging, and
charmingly attentive to Dick and his needs. As to Dick's horse, he
should have the best veterinary surgeon--there was an incomparable one
in the person of the blacksmith--see to him, and if it were an affair of
days, and Dick must go, he himself would be glad to purchase the
beast, his saddle, and accoutrements. It was an affair of business,--an
advertisement for the cafe! He would ride the horse himself before the
gates of the park. It would please his customers. Ha! he had learned a
trick or two in free America.

Dick's first act had been to shave off his characteristic beard and
mustache, and even to submit his long curls to the village barber's
shears, while a straw hat, which he bought to take the place of his
slouched sombrero, completed his transformation. His host saw in the
change only the natural preparation of a voyager, but Dick had really
made the sacrifice, not from fear of detection, for he had recovered his
old swaggering audacity, but from a quick distaste he had taken to his
resemblance to the portrait. He was too genuine a Westerner, and too
vain a man, to feel flattered at his resemblance to an aristocratic
bully, as he believed the ancestral De Fontonelles to be. Even his
momentary sensation as he faced the Cure in the picture-galle