t to the foundry of Christofle and Company. I saw him going, with
a slow and lounging pace, toward the brick-pile, stopping by the way to
quench his thirst at a hydrant, whose stream was so slender that a good
many applications of the cup of Diogenes were necessary to allay the
heat concentred in the fellow's thick throat. Arrived finally at the
heap of bricks, the goal of his promenade, he took up precisely six, and
proceeded with a lordly, lounging step to bear them back to the masons.
Then, folding his arms, he watched the imbedding of those bricks in
their plaster with a sovereign calm like that of Vitellius eating figs
at the combats of the gladiators. When he consented to take up again his
serene march, it was the turn of the bricklayers to fold their arms. At
each errand he consulted the hydrant, and the builders watched all his
movements with sympathy and approval.

I photograph the moving figures in the street with the same simple
fidelity which I have employed to represent the trouble-saving
conveniences of my chamber. Take another hero, equally worthy of Capua.
The placid personage who assisted me to a bath in my room was as happy a
dullard as my waiter in the _Baden_, and both of them caressed their job
as Narcissus caressed the fountain.

[Illustration: THE KNIGHT OF THE BATH]

A large cart drew up before the door, containing twelve kegs, thoroughly
bunged. Any stranger would take the load for one of beer, but a tub
among the kegs acted as interpreter. The young man from the baths in the
first place saw to his horse. He walked around it: the drive having
heated the animal, he covered it with a cloth, and guaranteed its head
against the flies with several plumes of foliage, beneath which Dobbin,
blinded but content, showed only the paralytic flapping of his
pendulous, negro-like lips. These indispensable cares despatched, the
young man from the baths brought up the tub after a short gossip with
the kitchen-maid, who was going out to market. He asked her if there
were a stable attached where he could put up the horse during the taking
of the bath: being answered in the negative, he then, with an almost
painful inconsequence of argument, chucked the girl under the chin. He
next inquired if she had any soap-fat. At length he consented to lumber
up the steps with one of his little kegs: the tenacity of the bung was
so exemplary that a long time was consumed in getting the advantage
over it, and the water on it