ost
elegant manner.

"It hangs at your door--Joan of Arc, I wish to buy it."

"It is not for sale, Eurer Gnaden."

"Bah!" ejaculated Milor, "I must have it. I will cover it with guineas."

"It is impossible."

"How impossible?" cried Milor, diving into the capacious pocket of the
drab coat with the pearl buttons, and drawing forth a heavy roll of
English bank-notes, "I'll bet you anything you like that it is possible."

You know, mein Lieber, that the English settle everything by a wager;
indeed, betting and swearing is about all their language is fit for. For
a fact, there were once two English noblemen, from Manchester or some
such ancient place, who journeyed down the Rhine on the steam-boat. They
looked neither to the right nor to the left; neither at the vine-fields
nor the old castles; but sat at a table, silent and occupied with nothing
before them but two lumps of sugar, and two heaps of guineas. A little
crowd gathered round them wondering what it might mean. Suddenly one of
them cried out, "Goddam, it's mine!" "What is yours?" inquired one who
stood by, gaping with curiosity. "Don't you see," replied the other, "I
bet twenty guineas level, that the first fly would alight upon my lump of
sugar, and by God, I've won it!"

To return to Milor. "I'll bet you anything you like that it is
possible," said he.

"Your grace," replied the shopkeeper, "my Joan of Arc is beyond price to
me. It draws all the town to my shop; not forgetting the foreigners."

"I will buy your shop," said the Englishman.

"Milor! Graf Schweinekopf von Pimplestein called only yesterday to see
it, and Le Comte de Barbebiche."

"A Frenchman!" shouted Milor.

"From Paris, your grace."

"Will you sell me your Joan of Arc?" was the furious demand. "I will
cover it with pounds sterling twice over."

"Le Comte de Barbebiche--"

"You have promised it to him?"

"Yes!" gasped Herr Wechsel, catching at the idea.

"Enough!" cried the English nobleman; and he strode into the street.
With one impassioned glance at the figure of La Pucelle, he threw himself
into his fiaker, and drove rapidly out of sight.

On reaching his hotel, he chose two pairs of boxing gloves, a set of
rapiers, and a case of duelling pistols; and, thus loaded, descended to
his fiaker, tossed them in, and started off in the direction of the
nearest hotel. "Le Comte de Barbebiche"--that was the pass-word; but
everywhere it failed to elicit the desired rep