endeavored
to leap across to the other train, stirred all my bile. It was on
this current of thought that the nobleman who had been hung and the
cardinal who had pined in a cage were borne upon my memory. "Small
choice," said I, "whether the bars are perpendicular or horizontal.
You lose your independence about equally by either monopoly."

[Illustration: CARDINAL BALUE.]

I crossed the Canal de l'Ourcq, and watched it stretching like a steel
tape to meet the Canal Saint--Denis and the Canal Saint-Martin in the
great basin at La Villette--a construction which, finished in 1809,
was the making of La Villette as a commercial and industrial entrepot.
I meant to walk to Bondy, and after a botanic stroll in its beautiful
forest to retrace my steps, gaining Marly next day by Baubigny,
Aubervilliers and Nanterre. "The Aladdins of our time," I said as I
leaned over the soft gray water, "are the engineers. They rub their
theodolites, and there springs up, not a palace, but a town."

[Illustration: AN UNCIVIL ENGINEER.]

"Who speaks of engineers?" said a strong baritone voice as a weighty
hand fell on my shoulder. "Are you here to take the train at Noisy?"

"Let the train go to Jericho! I am trying, on the contrary, to get
away from it."

"Do you mean, then, to go on foot to Epernay?"

"What do you mean, Epernay?"

"Why, have you forgotten the feast of Saint Athanasius?"

"What do you mean, Athanasius?"

The baritone belonged to one of my friends, an engineer from Boston.
He had an American commission to inspect the canals of Europe on the
part of a company formed to buy out the Sound line of steamers and
dig a ship-canal from Boston to Providence. The engineer had made
his inspection the excuse for a few years of not disagreeable travel,
during which time the company had exploded, its chief financier having
cut his throat when his peculations came out to the public.

[Illustration: LOCOMONIAC POSSESSION.]

"Are you trying, then, to escape from one of your greatest possible
duties and one of your greatest possible pleasures? You have the
remarkable fortune to possess a friend named Athanasius; you have in
addition, the strange fate to be his godfather by secondary baptism;
and you would, after these unparalleled chances, be the sole renegade
from the vow which you have extracted from the others."

The words were uncivil and rude, the hand was on my shoulder like
a vise; but there floated into my head a recollectio