Germans seemed not
to heed; but now and then the American school-marms unmasked the
charlatan. On such occasions his unfaltering impudence reached heights
truly sublime. The sharp-witted ladies looked in his eyes, forgot their
wrongs, and, if he had told them that the Eiffel Tower had been erected
by the Pilgrim Fathers, would have accepted the statement meekly.

"My friend," said Aristide, with Provencal flourish and braggadocio, "I
never met a woman that would not sooner be misled by me than be taught
by the whole Faculty of the Sorbonne."

He had been practising this honourable profession for about a month,
lodging with the good Mme. Bidoux at 213 bis, Rue Saint-Honore, when,
one morning, in the vestibule of the hotel, he ran into his old friend
Batterby, whom he had known during the days of his professorship of
French at the Academy for Young Ladies in Manchester. The pair had been
fellow-lodgers in the same house in the Rusholme Road; but, whereas
Aristide lived in one sunless bed-sitting-room looking on a forest of
chimney-pots, Batterby, man of luxury and ease, had a suite of
apartments on the first floor and kept an inexhaustible supply of
whisky, cigars, and such-like etceteras of the opulent, and the very
ugliest prize bull-pup you can imagine. Batterby, in gaudy raiment,
went to an office in Manchester; in gaudier raiment he often attended
race meetings. He had rings and scarf-pins and rattled gold in his
trousers pockets. He might have been an insufferable young man for a
poverty-stricken teacher of French to have as a fellow-lodger; but he
was not. Like all those born to high estate, he made no vulgar parade of
his wealth, and to Aristide he showed the most affable hospitality. A
friendship had arisen between them, which the years had idealized rather
than impaired. So when they met that morning in the vestibule of the
Hotel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse their greetings were fervent and
prolonged.

In person Batterby tended towards burliness. He had a red, jolly face,
divided unequally by a great black moustache, and his manner was hearty.
He slapped Aristide on the back many times and shook him by the
shoulders.

"We must have a drink on this straight away, old man," said he.

"You're so strange, you English," said Aristide. "The moment you have an
emotion you must celebrate it by a drink. 'My dear fellow, I've just
come into a fortune; let us have a drink.' Or, 'My friend, my poor old
father has just bee