you care for here or hereafter,
no deception with me. It is not a head that has been tried like mine can
bear a cheat.'

'I have no object in deceiving you; nor am I ashamed to say who I am,'
replied I, 'My name is Tiernay--Maurice Tiernay.'

The word was but out when the poor fellow threw himself forward, and
grasping my hands, fell upon and kissed them.

'So, then, cried he passionately, 'I am not friendless--I am not utterly
deserted in life--you are yet left to me, my dear boy!'

This burst of feeling convinced me that he was deranged; and I was
speculating in my mind how best to make my escape from him, when he
pushed back the long and tangled hair from his face, and staring wildly
at me, said, 'You know me now--don't you? Oh, look again, Maurice, and
do not let me think that I am forgotten by all the world.

'Good heavens!' cried I, 'it is Colonel Mahon!'

'Ay, "Le Beau Mahon,"' said he, with a burst of wild laughter; 'Le Beau
Mahon, as they used to call me long ago. Is this a reverse of fortune, I
ask you?' and he held out the ragged remnants of his miserable clothes.
'I have not worn shoes for nigh a month. I have tasted food but once in
the last thirty hours! I, that have led French soldiers to the charge
full fifty times, up to the very batteries of the enemy, am reduced to
hide and skulk from place to place like a felon, trembling at the clank
of a gendarme's boot, as never the thunder of an enemy's squadron made
me. Think of the persecution that has brought me to this, and made me a
beggar and a coward together!'

A gush of tears burst from him at these words, and he sobbed for several
minutes like a child.

Whatever might have been the original source of his misfortunes, I had
very little doubt that now his mind had been shaken by their influence,
and that calamity had deranged him. The flighty uncertainty of his
manner, the incoherent rapidity with which he passed from one topic to
another, increased with his excitement, and he passed alternately
from the wildest expressions of delight at our meeting, to the most
heart-rending descriptions of his own sufferings. By great patience
and some ingenuity, I learned that he had taken refuge in the wood of
Belleville, where the kindness of an old soldier of his own brigade--now
a _garde-chasse_--had saved him from starvation. Jacques Gaillon was
continually alluded to in his narrative. It was Jacques sheltered him
when he came first to Belleville. Jacques