en dining with Mohun at the Trois Freres, and they were
returning late toward the Boulevards, when their attention was attracted
by a group in one of the narrow streets leading out of the Rue Vivienne.
Five or six raffish-looking men had surrounded a fair, delicate girl,
and were preparing to besiege her in form, deriving apparently intense
amusement from the piteous entreaties of their victim to be released.
Not the _roues_ of the Regency after the suppers that have become a
by-word--not the _mousquetaires_ after the wildest of their orgies--were
ever so unrelenting in brutality toward women quite lonely and
undefended as those unshorn ornaments of Young France, when replete with
a dinner at forty _sous_, and with the anomalous liquor that Macon
blushes to own.

In all Europe there is no more genial companion and gallant gentleman
than the aristocrat of France _pur sang_--in all the world no more
terrible adversary than her wiry, well-trained soldier; but, from the
prolific decay of old institutions and prejudices, a mushroom growth has
sprouted of child-atheists and precocious profligates, calculating
debauchees while their cheeks are still innocent of down, who, after the
effervescence of a foul, vicious youth has spent itself, simmer down
into avaricious, dishonest _bourgeois_ and bloated cafe politicians. The
teeth of the Republican dragon have been drawn, but they are sown
broadcast from Dan even to Beersheba. Ancient realm of Capet, Valois,
and Bourbon--motherland of Du Guesclin and Bayard--you may well be proud
of your Cadmean offspring!

Guy was passing the scene with a careless side-glance when the accent of
the suppliant caught his ear--not French, though she spoke the language
perfectly.

"By G--d," he said, dropping Mohun's arm, "I believe it's an
Englishwoman they are bullying;" and three of his long strides took him
into the midst of the group.

Two of the aggressors reeled back, right and left, from the shock of his
mighty shoulders; and griping another, the tallest, by the collar, he
whirled him some paces off on his back in the streaming kennel, as one
might do with a very weak, light little child. "_Au large, canaille_!"
he said, as he advanced on the two who still kept their feet. These drew
back from his path without a second warning. One indeed, eminent in the
_savate_, made a demonstration for an instant; but his comrade, who had
just gathered himself up, caught his arm, muttering "_Ne t'y fro