which they might impute to
him. But they did not comprehend him. Scores of stiff gens d'armes,
hundreds of little soldiers, stopped in their rush to the foot of the
column to shake their fists and scream at him.

"Now if I only understood their doosid lingo," thought the Senator.
"But"--after a pause--"it wouldn't be of no account up here. And what
an awkward fix," he added, "for the father of a family to stand
hatless on the top of a pillory like this! Sho!"

There came a deep rumble from the hollow stairway beneath him, which
grew nearer and louder every moment.

"Somebody's coming," said the Senator. "Wa'al, I'm glad. Misery loves
company. Perhaps I can purchase a hat."

In five minutes more the heads of twenty gens d'armes shot up through
the opening in the top of the pillar, one after another, and reminded
the Senator of the "Jump-up-Johnnies" in children's toys. Six of them
seized him and made him prisoner.

The indignant Senator remonstrated, and informed them that he was an
American citizen.

His remark made no impression. They did not understand English.

The Senator's wrath made his hair fairly bristle. He contented
himself, however, with drawing up the programme of an immediate war
between France and the Great Republic.

It took an hour for the column to get emptied. It was choked with
people rushing up. Seven gentlemen fainted, and three escaped with
badly sprained limbs. During this time the Senator remained in the
custody of his captors.

At last the column was cleared.

The prisoner was taken down and placed in a cab. He saw the dense crowd
and heard the mighty murmurs of the people.

He was driven away for an immense distance. It seemed miles.

At last the black walls of a huge edifice rose before him. The cab
drove under a dark archway. The Senator thought of the dungeons of the
Inquisition, and other Old World horrors of which he had heard in his
boyhood.

***

So the Senator had to give the dinner. The Club enjoyed it amazingly.

Almost at the moment of his entrance Buttons had arrived, arm in arm
with the American minister, whose representations and explanations
procured the Senator's release.

"I wouldn't have minded it so much," said the Senator, from whose
manly bosom the last trace of vexation had fled, "if it hadn't been
for that darned policeman that collared me first. What a Providence
it was that I didn't knock him down! Who do you think he was?"

"Who?"

"The ve