names of Fritz and Wilheim beside those of Damon and Pythias,
Castor and Pollux, Orestes and Pylades, Dubreuil and Pmejah, Schmucke
and Pons, and all the names that we imagine for the two friends of
Monomotapa, for La Fontaine (man of genius though he was) has made of
them two disembodied spirits--they lack reality. The two new names may
join the illustrious company, and with so much the more reason, since
that Wilhelm who had helped to drink Fritz's inheritance now proceeded,
with Fritz's assistance, to devour his own substance; smoking, needless
to say, every known variety of tobacco.

The pair, strange to relate, squandered the property in the dullest,
stupidest, most commonplace fashion, in Strasbourg _brasseries_, in
the company of ballet-girls of the Strasbourg theatres, and little
Alsaciennes who had not a rag of a tattered reputation left.

Every morning they would say, "We really must stop this, and make up our
minds and do something or other with the money that is left."

"Pooh!" Fritz would retort, "just one more day, and to-morrow"... ah!
to-morrow.

In the lives of Prodigal Sons, _To-day_ is a prodigious coxcomb, but
_To-morrow_ is a very poltroon, taking fright at the big words of his
predecessor. _To-day_ is the truculent captain of old world comedy,
_To-morrow_ the clown of modern pantomime.

When the two friends had reached their last thousand-franc note, they
took places in the mail-coach, styled Royal, and departed for Paris,
where they installed themselves in the attics of the Hotel du Rhin, in
the Rue du Mail, the property of one Graff, formerly Gideon Brunner's
head-waiter. Fritz found a situation as clerk in the Kellers' bank (on
Graff's recommendation), with a salary of six hundred francs. And a
place as book-keeper was likewise found for Wilhelm, in the business of
Graff the fashionable tailor, brother of Graff of the Hotel du Rhin, who
found the scantily-paid employment for the pair of prodigals, for the
sake of old times, and his apprenticeship at the Hotel de Hollande.
These two incidents--the recognition of a ruined man by a well-to-do
friend, and a German innkeeper interesting himself in two penniless
fellow-countrymen--give, no doubt, an air of improbability to the story,
but truth is so much the more like fiction, since modern writers of
fiction have been at such untold pains to imitate truth.

It was not long before Fritz, a clerk with six hundred francs, and
Wilhelm, a book-keepe