did
not wish to employ any of them on any terms. Nine-tenths of them
understood not a word of English; but his gesture was unmistakable. They
bowed gratefully, and said good-day.

Now Frowenfeld did these young men an injustice; and though they were
far from letting him know it, some of them felt it and interchanged
expressions of feeling reproachful to him as they stopped on the next
corner to watch a man painting a sign. He had treated them as if they
all wanted situations. Was this so? Far from it. Only twenty men were
applicants; the other twenty were friends who had come to see them get
the place. And again, though, as the apothecary had said, none of them
knew anything about the drug business--no, nor about any other business
under the heavens--they were all willing that he should teach
them--except one. A young man of patrician softness and costly apparel
tarried a moment after the general exodus, and quickly concluded that on
Frowenfeld's account it was probably as well that he could not qualify,
since he was expecting from France an important government appointment
as soon as these troubles should be settled and Louisiana restored to
her former happy condition. But he had a friend--a cousin--whom he would
recommend, just the man for the position; a splendid fellow; popular,
accomplished--what? the best trainer of dogs that M. Frowenfeld might
ever hope to look upon; a "so good fisherman as I never saw! "--the
marvel of the ball-room--could handle a partner of twice his weight; the
speaker had seen him take a lady so tall that his head hardly came up to
her bosom, whirl her in the waltz from right to left--this way! and
then, as quick as lightning, turn and whirl her this way, from left to
right--"so grezful ligue a peajohn! He could read and write, and knew
more comig song!"--the speaker would hasten to secure him before he
should take some other situation.

The wonderful waltzer never appeared upon the scene; yet Joseph made
shift to get along, and by and by found a man who partially met his
requirements. The way of it was this: With his forefinger in a book
which he had been reading, he was one day pacing his shop floor in deep
thought. There were two loose threads hanging from the web of incident
weaving around him which ought to connect somewhere; but where? They
were the two visits made to his shop by the young merchant, Honore
Grandissime. He stopped still to think; what "train of thought" could he
have