own pledge,
a kind of substitute for passports. We were a marked party, by reason of
the doctor's lameness and Skenedonk's appearance. The Oneida, during his
former sojourn in France, had been encouraged to preserve the novelty
of his Indian dress. As I had nothing to give him in its place it did
not become me to find fault. And he would have been more conspicuous
with a cocked hat on his bare red scalp, and knee breeches instead of
buckskins. Peasants ran out to look at him, and in return we looked at
them with a good will.

We reached the very barriers of Paris, however, without falling into
trouble. And in the streets were so many men of so many nations that
Skenedonk's attire seemed no more bizarre than the turbans of the east
or the white burnous of the Arab.

It was here that Skenedonk took his role as guide, and stalked through
narrow crooked streets, which by comparison made New York, my first
experience of a city, appear a plain and open village.

I do not pretend to know anything about Paris. Some spots in the mystic
labyrinth stand out to memory, such as that open space where the
guillotine had done its work, the site of the Bastille, and a long
street leading from the place of the Bastille, parallel with the river;
and this I have good reason to remember. It is called Rue St. Antoine. I
learned well, also, a certain prison, and a part of the ancient city
called Faubourg St. Germain. One who can strike obscure trails in the
wilderness of nature, may blunt his fine instincts on the wilderness of
man.

This did not befall the Indian. He took a bee line upon his old tracks,
and when the place was sighted we threaded what seemed to be a rivulet
between cliffs, for a moist depressed street-center kept us straddling
something like a gutter, while with outstretched hands we could brace
the opposite walls.

We entered a small court where a gruff man, called a concierge, having a
dirty kerchief around his head, received us doubtfully. He was not the
concierge of Skenedonk's day. We showed him coin; and Doctor Chantry sat
down in his chair and looked at him with such contempt that his respect
increased.

The house was clean, and all the stairs we climbed to the roof were well
scoured. From the mansard there was a beautiful view of Paris, with
forest growth drawing close to the heart of the city. For on that side
of the world men dare not murder trees, but are obliged to respect and
cherish them.

My poor mas