He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant air :

"Here I am! See me! Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the company of a mere smuggler ;— shut up with a poor little contraband trader, whose papers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of besides, for placing his boat (as a means of getting beyond the frontier) at the disposition of other little people whose papers are wrong; and he instinctively recognises my position, even by this light and in this place. It's well done! By Heaven! I win, however the game goes."

Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down.

"What's the hour now?” he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon hini, rather difficult of association with merriment..

"A little half-hour after mid-day."

"Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon. Come! Shall I tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for I shall not return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to be made ready for shaving. You know where they keep the razor."

Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, and showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been expected.

it

"I am a "-Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say "I am a cosmopolitan gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss-Canton de Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world."

His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip, within the folds of his cloak, together with his

manner of disregarding his companion and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he was rehearsing for the President, whose examination he was shortly to undergo, rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a person as John Baptist Cavalletto.

"Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I have lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman everywhere. I have been treated and respected as a gentleman universally. If you try to prejudice me, by making out that I have lived by my wits-how do your lawyers live -your politicians-your intriguers—your men of the Exchange?"

He kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it were a witness to his gentility that had often done him good service before.

"Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I admit that I was poor; I had been ill. When your lawyers, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped money together, they become poor. I put up at the Cross of Gold,-kept then by Monsieur Henri Barronneausixty-five at least, and in a failing state of health. I had lived in the house some four months, when Monsieur Henri Barronneau had the misfortune to die; at any rate, not a rare misfortune, that. It happens without any aid of mine, pretty often."

John Baptist having smoked his cigarette down to his fingers' ends, Monsieur Rigaud had the magnanimity to throw him another. He lighted the second at the ashes of the first, and smoked on, looking sideways at his companion, who, pre-occupied with his own case, hardly looked at him. She was

"Monsieur Barronneau left a widow.

two-and-twenty. She had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful. I continued to live at the Cross of Gold. I married Madame Barronneau. It is not for me to say whether there was any great disparity in such a match. Here I stand, with the contamination of a jail upon me; but it is possible that you may think me better suited to her than her former husband was.'

He had a certain air of being a handsome manwhich he was not; and a certain air of being a wellbred man-which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.

me.

"Be it as it may, Madame Barronneau approved of That is not to prejudice me, I hope?

His eye happening to light upon John Baptist with this inquiry, that little man briskly shook his head in the negative, and repeated in an argumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, altro, altro—an infinite number of times.

"Now came the difficulties of our position. I am proud. I say nothing in defence of pride, but I am proud. It is also my character to govern. I can't submit; I must govern. Unfortunately, the property of Madame Rigaud was settled upon herself. Such was the insane act of her late husband. More unfortunately still, she had relations. When a wife's relations interpose against a husband who is a gentleman, who is proud, and who must govern, thẻ consequences are inimical to peace. There was yet another source of difference between us. Madame Rigaud was unfortunately a little vulgar. I sought to improve her manners and ameliorate her general tone; she (supported in this likewise by, her relations)

resented my endeavours. Quarrels began to arise between us; and, propagated and exaggerated by the slanders of the relations of Madame Rigaud, to become notorious to the neighbours. It has been said that I treated Madame Rigaud with cruelty. I may have been seen to slap her face-nothing more. have a light hand; and if I have been seen apparently to correct Madame Rigaud in that manner, I have done it almost playfully."

I

If the playfulness of Monsieur Rigaud were at all expressed by his smile at this point, the relations of Madame Rigaud might have said that they would have much preferred his correcting that unfortunate woman seriously.

"I am sensitive and brave. I do not advance it as a merit to be sensitive and brave, but it is my character. If the male relations of Madame Rigaud had put themselves forward openly, I should have known how to deal with them. They knew that, and their machinations were conducted in secret ; consequently, Madame Rigaud and I were brought into frequent and unfortunate collision.

Even when I wanted any little sum of money for my personal expenses, I could not obtain it without collisionand I, too, a man whose character it is to govern ! One night, Madame Rigaud and myself were walking amicably-I may say like lovers-on a height overhanging the sea. An evil star occasioned Madame Rigaud to advert to her relations; I reasoned with her on that subject, and remonstrated on the want of duty and devotion manifested in her allowing herself to be influenced by their jealous animosity towards her husband. Madame Rigaud retorted; I retorted; Madame Rigaud grew warm; I grew warm, and provoked her. I admit it. Frankness is a part of

my character. At length, Madame Rigaud, in an access of fury that I must ever deplore, threw herself upon me with screams of passion (no doubt those that were overheard at some distance), tore my clothes, tore my hair, lacerated my hands, trampled and trod the dust, and finally leaped over, dashing herself to death upon the rocks below. Such is the train of incidents which malice has perverted into my endeavouring to force from Madame Rigaud a relinquishment of her rights; and, on her persistence in a refusal to make the concession I required, struggling with her assassinating her!"

He stepped aside to the ledge where the vine leaves yet lay strewn about, collected two or three, and stood wiping his hands upon them, with his back to the light. “Well,” he demanded after a silence, "have you nothing to say to all that?"

"It's ugly," returned the little man, who had risen, and was brightening his knife upon his shoe, as he leaned an arm against the wall.

"What do

you mean?

John Baptist polished his knife in silence.

"Do you mean that I have not represented the case correctly?"

"Al-tro!" returned John Baptist. The word was an apology now, and stood for "Oh, by no means!

"What then?"

"Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced.' "Well," cried the other, uneasily flinging the end of his cloak over his shoulder with an oath, "let them do their worst!

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"Truly I think they will," murmured John Baptist to himself, as he bent his head to put his knife in his sash.

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