case it should ever
have the good chance to be washed. The yard of bread was a novelty. The
distempered houses opposite--pink and green and blue--were novelties.
The jalousied windows gave the street a delicious foreign look. The
little cavalry officer who came clanking in with his baggy trousers
and his spurs and dangling sword, almost as long as its wearer, was a
delight. Paul went to the window to look at the middle-aged _bonne_ who
went by in her Alsatian cap and flying coloured ribbons.

At five-and-twenty a night of wearisome and broken sleep makes small
difference to the spirits, and when he had washed as well as he could
by the aid of a cream-jug full of water and a saucer, and a towel
handkerchief, and without the aid of soap, he dressed, and sallied
out with the intent to lose himself in Paris. There is nothing so
exhilarating as the first sight of a foreign city, and Paul wandered on
and on, past the Palace of Justice and over the bridge, and, turning to
the left, made along the Rue de Rivoli, passed the far-stretching facade
of the Louvre, and so went on till he reached the Place de la Concorde.
There, staring into the basin of one of the fountains, as if he had been
waiting for Paul to come to him, was Darco, fur-coated and silk-hatted
as of yore, and looking neither older nor younger by a day than when
they had parted.

'Darco!' said Paul, with his heart in his mouth. 'How glad I am! You
dear old Darco!'

Darco stared a moment, for the young man's beard and moustache were
fully grown, and they disguised him.

'Oh!' he said at last. 'Id is Armstronk. How do you do?' He held out
his hand somewhat laxly, but Paul took it in both his and wrung it
fervently.

'I can't tell you how glad I am to see you. I can't tell you how
bitterly sorry I've been for the brutal way in which I paid you for
all your kindness. Try and forgive me, old chap. Do now. It wasn't
ingratitude, Darco, though it looked like it It was a boy's infatuation
for a woman.'

'I dold you,' said Darco--' I rememper as if it was yesterday. I said:
"You are a tarn fool, and you will be zorry."'

'I _have_ been sorry this five years or nearly,' said Paul, still
clinging to his hand. 'Make it up, old chap, and come and have lunch
somewhere.'

'Zo pe id,' said Darco, stolid as an ox. 'Do you vant a virst-glass
restaurant, or a second-glass, or vat?'

'The best in Paris!' cried Paul gaily, though he had to blow his nose
and to cry 'Hem!' t