h and distinction. This was not the same New Orleans. The people
he met on the street were more or less familiar to his memory, but many
that should have recognized him failed to do so, and others were made to
notice him rather by his cough than by his face. Some did not know he
had been away. It made him cross.

He had walked slowly down beyond the old Frowenfeld corner and had just
crossed the street to avoid the dust of a building which was being torn
down to make place for a new one, when he saw coming toward him,
unconscious of his proximity, Joseph Frowenfeld.

"Doctor Keene!" said Frowenfeld, with almost the enthusiasm of Raoul.

The doctor was very much quieter.

"Hello, Joe."

They went back to the new drug-store, sat down in a pleasant little rear
corner enclosed by a railing and curtains, and talked.

"And did the trip prove of no advantage to you?"

"You see. But never mind me; tell me about Honore; how does that row
with his family progress?"

"It still continues; the most of his people hold ideas of justice and
prerogative that run parallel with family and party lines, lines of
caste, of custom and the like they have imparted their bad feeling
against him to the community at large; very easy to do just now, for the
election for President of the States comes on in the fall, and though we
in Louisiana have little or nothing to do with it, the people are
feverish."

"The country's chill-day," said Doctor Keene; "dumb chill, hot fever."

"The excitement is intense," said Frowenfeld. "It seems we are not to
be granted suffrage yet; but the Creoles have a way of casting votes in
their mind. For example, they have voted Honore Grandissime a traitor;
they have voted me an encumbrance; I hear one of them casting that
vote now."

Some one near the front of the store was talking excitedly with Raoul:

"An'--an'--an' w'at are the consequence? The consequence are that we
smash his shop for him an' 'e 'ave to make a noo-start with a Creole
partner's money an' put 'is sto' in charge of Creole'! If I know he is
yo' frien'? Yesseh! Valuable citizen? An' w'at we care for valuable
citizen? Let him be valuable if he want; it keep' him from gettin' the
neck broke; but--he mus'-tek-kyeh--'ow--he--talk'! He-mus'-tek-kyeh 'ow
he stir the 'ot blood of Louisyanna!"

"He is perfectly right," said the little doctor, in his husky undertone;
"neither you nor Honore is a bit sound, and I shouldn't wonder if they
would ha