rus. At Carlsruhe the theatre opens
at five o'clock, and closes virtuously at half-past eight. There was no
sign of my friend, no indication of a box for members of the diplomatic
body. I was very hungry, and would willingly have re-entered the
boulevards in search of a supper; but the express-train going toward
Paris would start at ten-fifteen, and I could afford to think of nothing
but my passport. I drove to the national office again, my new costume
quite shipwrecked and foundered in perspiration.

I was more explicit with the porter this time. I asked if Mr. Sylvester
Berkley had returned from the opera. I was answered by that functionary
that Mr. Pairkley was living at present in the city of Heidelberg, where
he was trying a diet of whey for the benefit of his liver.

[Illustration: THE SUNNY GROVE.]

I became flaccid with despair. I was without a refuge on the habitable
globe; my slender provision of funds would be exhausted in paying for
the carriage; I was unable even to seek the friend who for the moment
represented to me both country and fortune. The driver, witness of my
dejection and recipient of my history in part, proposed to me a
temporary refuge in a private hotel on the avenue of Ettlingen, where I
would find chambers by the day, and a family table. The landlady, he
believed, was a Belgian and a widow.

We drew up before a small house of neat appearance. I was shown a
chamber, where, no longer dreaming of supper, I fell across a cushion
like an overthrown statue. I felt as if a good month must have passed
since I possessed a home.

I had in pocket about thirty sous. The philosopher was right enough when
he said, "Traveling lengthens one's life;" only he should have added,
"It shortens one's purse."

On awakening next morning the linnets and finches communicated through
the window a pleasanter sentiment. Nature was gay and inspiring on this
lovely May-day. By a perversity quite natural with me, my letter to
Berkley, which it was my first care to write and post, contained but a
slight reflection of my woes. My need of a passport only appeared in a
postscriptum, wherein I begged him to arrange that little affair for me
in some way by correspondence. The bulk of my communication was a eulogy
of May, of youth, of flowers, of birds, all of which were saluting me as
I scribbled from the beautiful little grove outside my casement.
Treating the diplomate as an intimate friend--a caprice of the moment on
m