e
Frenchman had evidently been rummaging old Nor'-West vaults.

"Tra-la, comrade," he shouted, leaping out of the cellar as soon as he
saw me. "I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, am resurrecting. I was a
Plante! Now I'm a _Louis d'or_, fresh coined from the golden vein of
dazzling wit. Once we were men, but they drowned us in a wine-barrel
like your lucky dog of an English prince. Now we're earth-goblins
re-incarnate! Behold gnomes of the mine! Knaves of the nethermost
depths, tra-la! Vampires that suck the blood of whisky-cellars and float
to the skies with dusky wings and dizzy heads! Laugh with us, old
solemncholy! See the ground spin! Laugh, I say, or be a hitching-post,
and we'll dance the May-pole round you! We're vampires, comrade, and
you're our cousin, for you're a bat," and Louis applauded his joke with
loud, tipsy laughter and staggered up to me drunk as a lord. His heavy
breath and bloodshot eyes testified what he had found under the rubbish
heaps of Fort Gibraltar's cellar. Embracing me with the affection of a
long-lost brother, he rattled on with a befuddled, meaningless jargon.

"So the knife cut well, did it? And the Sioux did not eat you by inches,
beginning with your thumbs? Ha! Tres bien! Very good taste! You were not
meant for feasts, my solemncholy? Some men are monuments. That's you,
mine frien'! Some are champagne bottles that uncork, zip, fizz, froth,
stars dancing round your head! That's me! 'Tis I, Louis Laplante, son of
a seigneur, am that champagne bottle!"

Pausing for breath, he drew himself erect with ridiculous pomposity. Now
there are times when the bravest and wisest thing a brave and wise man
can do is take to his heels. I have heard my Uncle Jack MacKenzie say
that vice and liquor and folly are best frustrated by flight; and all
three seemed to be embodied in Louis Laplante that night. A stupid sort
of curiosity made me dally with the mischief brewing in him, just as the
fly plays with the spider-web, or the fish with a baited hook.

"There's a fountain-spout in Nor'-West vaults for those who know where
to tap the spigot, eh, Louis?" I asked.

"I'm a Hudson's Bay man and to the conqueror comes the tribute,"
returned Louis, sweeping me a courtly bow.

"I hope such a generous conqueror draws all the tribute he deserves. Do
you remember how you saved my life twice from the Sioux, Louis?"

"Generous," shouted the Frenchman, drawing himself up proudly, "generous
to mine enemy, al