t present, isn't it?"

'"I begin to agree with you," said I coolly; and so, turning round on
my side, I closed my eyes, and fell into as pleasant a sleep as ever I
remember in my life.

'They were, indeed, a very singular class of restoratives which my kind
friends thought proper to administer to me; nor am I quite sure that
a _bavaroise_ of chocolate dashed with rum, and friction over the face
with hot Eau de Cologne are sufficiently appreciated by the "faculty";
but this I do know, that I felt very much revived by the application
without and within; and with a face somewhat the colour of a copper
preserving-pan, and far too hot to put anything on, I sat up and looked
about me. A merrier set of gentlemen not even my experience had ever
beheld. They were mostly middle-aged, grizzly-looking fellows, with very
profuse beards and moustaches; their conversation was partly French,
partly German, while here and there a stray Italian diminutive crept
in; and to season the whole, like cayenne in a ragout, there was an odd
curse in English. Their strange dress, their free-and-easy manner, their
intimacy with one another, and, above all, the _locale_ they had chosen
for their festivities, made me, I own, a little suspicious about their
spotless morality, and I began conjecturing to what possible calling
they might belong--now guessing them smugglers, now police of some kind
or other, now highwaymen outright, but without ever being able to
come to any conclusion that even approached satisfaction. The more I
listened, the more did my puzzle grow on me. That they were either
the most distinguished and exalted individuals or the most confounded
story-tellers was certain. Here was a fat, greasy little fellow, with a
beard like an Armenian, who was talking of a trip he made to Greece
with the Duke of Saxe-Weimar; apparently they were on the best of terms
together, and had a most jolly time of it. There was a large handsome
man, with a short black moustache, describing a night attack made by
wolves on the caravan he was in, during a journey to Siberia. I listened
with intense interest to his narrative; the scenery, the danger, the
preparation for defence, had all those little traits that bespeak truth,
when, confound him! he destroyed the whole as he said, "At that moment
the Archduke Nicholas said to _me_----" The Archduke Nicholas, indeed!
very good that! he's just as great a liar as the other.

'"Come," thought I, "there's a respec