I welcomed the stranger most cordially in French, and was
still more bewitched by the retiring shyness of his modest demeanor.
As the jailer retired, a wink signified his desire to commune with me
apart in his office, where I learned that the new comer had been
arrested under a charge of _counterfeiting_, but on account of his
genteel appearance and blood, was placed in our apartment. I had no
doubt that neither appearance nor blood had been the springs of
sympathy in the jailer's heart, but that the artificial money-maker
had judiciously used certain lawful coins to insure better quarters.
Nevertheless, I did not hesitate to approve the turnkey's disposal of
the suspected felon, and begged him to make no apologies or give
himself concern as to the quality of the article that could afford us
a moment's amusement in our dreary den.

I next proceeded to initiate my gentleman into the mysteries of the
_chateau_; and as dinner was about serving, I suggested that the most
important of our domestic rites on such occasions, imperatively
required three or four bottles of first-rate claret.

By this time we had acquired a tolerable knack of "slaughtering the
evening." Our Spanish girls supplied us with guitars and violins,
which my comrades touched with some skill. We were thus enabled to
give an occasional _soiree dansante_, assisted by la Vivandiere, her
companions Dolorescita, Concha, Madame Sorret, and an old maid who
passed for her sister. The arrival of the counterfeiter enabled us to
make up a full cotillon without the musicians. Our _soirees_,
enlivened by private contributions and a bottle or two of wine, took
place on Thursdays and Sundays, while the rest of the week was passed
in playing cards, reading romances, writing petitions, flirting with
the girls, and cursing our fate and the French government. Fits of
wrath against the majesty of Gaul were more frequent in the early
morning, when the pleasant sleeper would be suddenly roused from happy
dreams by the tramp of soldiers and grating bolts, which announced the
unceremonious entrance of our inspector to count his cattle and sound
our window gratings.

But time wastes one's cash as well as one's patience in prison. The
more we grumbled, danced, drank, and eat, the more we spent or
lavished, so that my funds looked very like a thin sediment at the
bottom of the purse, when I began to reflect upon means of
replenishing. I could not beg; I was master of no handicraf