artre make a nice little income with this kind of
business. Sometimes, however, the plan only half succeeds, and either
the rope breaks, or the Federal considers, he may manage capitally to
reconcile his interest with his duty, by sending a ball after the
escaped _refractaire_.

Disguises are also the order of the day. A poet, whose verses were
received at the Comedie Francaise with enthusiasm during the siege,
managed to get away, thanks to an official on the Northern Railway, who
lent him his coat and cap. Another poet--they are an ingenious
race--conceived a plan of greater boldness. One day on the Boulevard he
called a fiacre, having first taken care to choose a coachman of
respectable age, "_Cocher_, drive to the Rue Montorgueil, to the best
restaurant you can find." On the way the poet reasoned thus to himself:
"This coachman has in his pocket, as they all have, a Communal passport,
which allows him to go out and come into Paris as he pleases; let me
remember the fourth act of my last melodrama, and I am saved."

The cab stopped in front of a restaurant of decent exterior not far from
Philippe's. The young man went in, asked for a private room, and told
the waiter to send up the coachman, as he had something to say to him,
and to procure a boy to hold the horse. The coachman walked into the
room, where the breakfast was ready served.

"Now, coachman, I am going to keep you all day, so do not refuse to
drink a glass with me to keep up your strength."

An hour after the poet and the coachman had breakfasted like old
friends; six empty bottles testified that neither one nor the other were
likely to die of thirst. The poet grumbled internally to himself as he
thought of the three bottles of Clos-Vougeot, one of Leoville, two of
Moulin-au-Vent, that had been consumed, and the fellow not drunk yet.
Then he determined to try surer means, and called to the waiter to
bring champagne. "It is no use, young fellow," laughed the coachman, who
was familiar at least, if he was not drunk; "champagne won't make any
difference; if you counted on that to get my passport, you reckoned
without your host!"--"The devil I did," cried the poor young man,
horrified to see his scheme fall through, and to think of the prodigious
length of the bill he should have to pay for nothing.--"Others, have
tried it on, but I am too wide awake by half," said the coachman, adding
as he emptied the last bottle into his glass, "give me two ten-franc
p