twenty, whose features were not
unfamiliar to him.

'We have met before, sir,' said he.

'It was because I recognised your voice I ventured to address you; you
were a Garde du Corps once?'

'And you?'

'I was once upon a time the Viscount Alfred de Noe,' said the other
lightly. 'It was a part my ancestors performed for some seven or eight
centuries. Now I change my _role_ every night.'

Through all the levity of this remark there was also what savoured
of courage, that bold defiance of the turns of fortune which sounded
haughtily.

'I, too, have had my reverses; but not so great as yours,' said Gerald
modestly.

'When a man is killed by a fall, what signifies it if the drop has been
fifty feet or five hundred! _Mon cher_,' said the other, 'you and I were
once gentlemen--we talked, ate, drank, and dressed as such; we have now
the _canaille_ life, and the past is scarcely even a dream.'

'It is the present I would call a dream,' said Gerald.

'I 'd do so too if its cursed reality would let me,' said De Noe,
laughing, 'or if I could throw off the cast of shop for one brief hour,
and feel myself the man I once was.'

'What are you counting? Have you lost anything?' asked Gerald, as the
other turned over some pieces of money in his hand, and then hastily
searched pocket after pocket.

'No; I was just seeing if I had wherewithal to ask you to sup with me,
and I find that I have.'

'Rather, come and share mine--I live here,' said Gerald, as he pushed
a door which lay ajar. 'It's a very humble meal I invite you to partake
of; but we 'll drink to the good time coming.'

'I accept frankly,' said the other, as he followed Gerald up the dark
and narrow stairs.

'A bed and a looking-glass, as I live!' exclaimed De Noe, as he entered
the room. 'What a sybarite! Why, my friend, you outrage the noble
precepts of our glorious Revolution by these luxurious pretensions--you
insult equality and fraternity together.'

'Let me at least conciliate liberty then,' said Gerald gaily, 'and ask
you to feel yourself at home.'

'How am I to call thee, _mon cher?_' said De Noe, assuming the familiar
second person, which I beg the reader to supply in the remainder of the
interview.

'Gerald Fitzgerald is my name.'

'Le Chevalier Fitzgerald was just becoming a celebrity when they changed
the spectacle. Ah, what a splendid engagement we all had, if we only
knew how to keep it!'

'The fault was not entirely ours,' protested Ger