two quick cuts of the scissors, close to the head. 'There,'
said he, throwing the cut-off hair towards me, 'there lies all your
saintship; depend upon it, boy, they 'd hunt you out of the settlement
if you came back to them cropped in this fashion.'

'But you return to certain death, Santron,' said I; 'your crime is too
recent to be forgiven or forgotten.'

'Not a bit of it; Fouche, Cassaubon, and a dozen others, now in office,
were deeper than I was. There's not a public man in France could stand
an exposure, or hazard recrimination. It's a thieves' amnesty at this
moment, and I must not lose the opportunity. I'll show you letters that
will prove it, Maurice; for, poor and ill-fed as I am, I like life just
as well as ever I did. I mean to be a general of division one of these
days, and so will you too, lad, if there's any spirit left in you.'

Thus did Santron rattle on, sometimes of himself and his own future;
sometimes discussing mine; for while talking, he had contrived to learn
all the chief particulars of my history, from the time of my sailing
from La Rochelle for Ireland.

The unlucky expedition afforded him great amusement, and he was never
weary of laughing at all our adventures and mischances in Ireland. Of
Humbert, he spoke as a fourth or fifth-rate man, and actually shocked
me by all the heresies he uttered against our generals, and the plan of
campaign; but, perhaps, I could have borne even these better than the
sarcasms and sneers at the little life of 'the settlement.' He treated
all my efforts at defence as mere hypocrisy, and affected to regard
me as a mere knave, that had traded on the confiding kindness of these
simple villagers. I could not undeceive him on this head; nor, what was
more, could I satisfy my own conscience that he was altogether in the
wrong; for, with a diabolical ingenuity, he had contrived to hit on some
of the most vexatious doubts which disturbed my mind, and instinctively
to detect the secret cares and difficulties that beset me. The lesson
should never be lost on us, that the devil was depicted as a sneerer!
I verily believe the powers of temptation have no such advocacy as
sarcasm. Many can resist the softest seductions of vice; many are proof
against all the blandishments of mere enjoyment, come in what shape it
will; but how few can stand firm against the assaults of clever irony,
or hold fast to their convictions when assailed by the sharp shafts of
witty depreciation!