he cause of the present agitation,
were uttered by the excited journalist a door at the further end of the
apartment softly opened, and a young man of very low stature and boyish
in aspect entered. He seemed, at a first glance, hardly to have attained
his majority, though actually he was ten years older. His face was
round, yet pale, his lips full, his brow commanding, his eye large, dark
and thoughtful, and His characteristic expression mild and benevolent.
He wore a dark frock coat, buttoned to the chin, and a plain black
cravat was tied around his neck.

The journalist was so deeply absorbed in his meditations that for some
moments he seemed unaware that he was no longer alone, and he might have
remained yet longer in that ignorance had not the guest approached and
exclaimed:

"Algeria!"

The journalist raised his head and hastily turned.

"Ah! Louis, is it you?" he said, cordially extending his hand; "I'm glad
you've come. But why did I not hear you?"

"For two reasons, my dear Armand," said the visitor, seating himself in
an editorial chair: "one, that I came in by the private entrance, and
the other, that you were too zealously engaged in cursing the recent
appointment of the King to hear anything short of a salvo of artillery."

"Ah! that cursed appointment! What next I wonder? Thank God, the old man
has no more sons to make governors, although he'll never be satisfied
till each one of them has a crown on his head, by his own right or the
right of a wife."

"And what care we whom the boys marry, so long as marriage takes them
out of France? Montpensier can find favor in the eyes of the Spanish
Infanta, Christina's sister, and thus balk England; be it so, yes, be it
so, especially since it can't be helped or prevented."

"But this affair of Algeria, Louis--"

"Is a very different affair you would say. No doubt, no doubt. As to
Algeria, I have always viewed it as a very costly bauble for France, 'an
opera-box' as the Duke of Broglie once said, 'rather too expensive for
France.'"

"But then it has been a splendid arena for French valor. It has given
the rough old Bugeaud a Marshal's baton, and has made the gallant
Lamoriciere, his sworn foe, a general officer, thanks to his own
intrepid conduct and the court influence of his brother-in-law, Thiers."

"In the late dispatch appear the names of some new candidates for
advancement, I perceive."

"You allude to Morrel and Joliette among others, I suppose.