d the door. The specimen of Perfidious Albion
whom I had just been studying gave me the stronger zest for my
fellow-countrymen. I could have embraced them; I could have wept on
their necks. And all the time I was going to a disappointment.

It was in a spacious and low room, with an outlook on the court, that I
found them bestowed. In the good days of that house the apartment had
probably served as a library, for there were traces of shelves along the
wainscot. Four or five mattresses lay on the floor in the corner, with a
frowsy heap of bedding; near by was a basin and a cube of soap; a rude
kitchen-table and some deal chairs stood together at the far end; and
the room was illuminated by no less than four windows, and warmed by a
little crazy sidelong grate, propped up with bricks in the vent of a
hospitable chimney, in which a pile of coals smoked prodigiously and
gave out a few starveling flames. An old frail white-haired officer sat
in one of the chairs, which he had drawn close to this apology for a
fire. He was wrapped in a camlet cloak, of which the collar was turned
up, his knees touched the bars, his hands were spread in the very smoke,
and yet he shivered for cold. The second--a big, florid, fine animal of
a man, whose every gesture labelled him the cock of the walk and the
admiration of the ladies--had apparently despaired of the fire, and now
strode up and down, sneezing hard, bitterly blowing his nose, and
proffering a continual stream of bluster, complaint, and barrack-room
oaths.

Fenn showed me in with the brief form of introduction: "Gentlemen all,
this here's another fare!" and was gone again at once. The old man gave
me but the one glance out of lack-lustre eyes; and even as he looked a
shiver took him as sharp as a hiccough. But the other, who represented
to admiration the picture of a Beau in a Catarrh, stared at me
arrogantly.

"And who are you, sir?" he asked.

I made the military salute to my superiors.

"Champdivers, private, Eighth of the Line," said I.

"Pretty business!" said he. "And you are going on with us? Three in a
cart, and a great trolloping private at that! And who is to pay for you,
my fine fellow?" he inquired.

"If monsieur comes to that," I answered civilly, "who paid for _him_?"

"Oh, if you choose to play the wit!" said he,--and began to rail at
large upon his destiny, the weather, the cold, the danger and the
expense of the escape, and, above all, the cooking of the a