p
at Genoa for twelve louis; a patent boot-jack and an ebony billiard cue;
a Paduan violin; two statuettes of more fidelity than modesty, to be
sold pound for pound at the current value of bronze; divers
pipes--articles of which Mr. Simp had earned the title of connoisseur,
by investing several hundred dollars annually--a gutta-percha
self-adjusting dog-muzzle, the dog attached to which had been seized by
H. M. Napoleon III. in lieu of taxes, etc., etc.

Everything passed out successfully except one pair of pantaloons which
protruded from Freckle's vest, and that unfortunate person at once fell
under suspicion of theft. All went in the manner stated to Mr. Lees'
chamber, he being the only colonist who did not hazard the loss of his
room, chiefly because nobody else would rent it, and in part because his
landlady, having swindled him for six or eight years, had compunctions
as to ejecting him.

Thence in the morning, true to his aristocratic instincts, Mr. Simp
departed in a _voiture_ for the central bureau of the Mont de Piete,[B]
in the Rue Blanc Manteau. His face had become familiar there of late. He
carried his articles up from the curb, while the _cocher_ grinned and
winked behind, and taking his turn in the throng of widows, orphans,
ouvriers, and profligates and unfortunates of all loose conditions, Simp
was a subject of much unenviable remark. He came away with quite an
armful of large yellow certificates, and the articles were registered to
Monsieur Simp, a French subject; for with such passports went all his
compatriots.

[Footnote B: The government pawnbroking shop.]

Andy Plade spent twenty-four hours, meanwhile, at the Grand Hotel,
enacting the time-honored part of all things to all men.

He differed from the other colonists, in that they were weak--he was
bad. He spoke several languages intelligibly, and knew much of many
things--art, finances, geography--just those matters on which newly
arrived Americans desire information. His address was even fascinating.
One suspected him to be a leech, but pardoned the motive for the manner.
He called himself a broken man. The war had blighted his fair fortunes.
For a time he had held on hopefully, but now meant to breast the current
no longer. His time was at the service of anybody. Would monsieur like
to see the city? He knew its every cleft and den. So he had lived in
Paris five years--in the same manner, elsewhere, all his life.

A few men heard his story a