on in the States, so picturesque and so
animated. Boors in blouses were galloping the great-hoofed beasts down
the course by fours and sixes; the ribbons and manes fluttered; the
whips cracked, and the owners hallooed in _patois_.

Four fifths of French horses are gray; here, there was scarcely one
exception; and the rule extended to the asses which moved amid hundreds
of braying mulets, while at the farther end of the ground the teams were
parked, and, near by, seller and buyer, book in hand, were chaffering
and smoking in shrewd good-humor.

One man was collecting animals for a celebrated stage-route, and the
gamester saw that he was a novice.

"Do you choose that for a good horse?" spoke up Risque, in his practical
way, when the man had set aside a fine, sinewy draught stallion.

"I do!" said the man, shortly.

"Then you have no eye. He has a bad strain. I can lift all his feet but
this one. See! he kicks if I touch it. Walk him now, and you will remark
that it tells on his pace."

The man was convinced and pleased. "You are a judge," he said, glancing
down Risque's dilapidated dress; "I will make it worth something to you
to remain here during the day and assist me."

The imperturbable gamester became a feature of the sale. He was the
best rider on the ground. He put his hard, freckled hand into the jaws
of stallions, and cowed the wickedest mule with his spotted eye. He knew
prices as well as values, and had, withal, a dashing way of bargaining,
which baffled the traders and amused his patron.

"You have saved me much money and many mistakes," said the latter, at
nightfall. "Who are you?"

"I am the man," answered Risque, straightforwardly, "to work on your
stage-line, and I am dead broke."

The man invited Risque to dinner; they rode together on the Champs
Elysees; and next morning at daylight the gamester left Paris without a
thought or a farewell for the Colony.

It was in the Grand Hotel that Messrs. Hugenot and Plade met by chance
the evening succeeding the dinner.

"I shall leave Paris, Andy," said Hugenot, regarding his pumps through
his eye-glass. "My ancestry would blush in their coffins if they knew
ou-ah cause to be represented by such individuals as those of last
evening."

"Let us go together," replied Plade, in his plausible way; "you cannot
speak a word of any continental language. Take me along as courier and
companion; pay my travelling expenses, and I will pay my own board."

"Ca