an acquaintance. The pursuit became at length a perfect farce, and I
hurried to and fro with a burning brain, and a restless impatience that
was almost maddening.

"Parbleu! this is the fourth time you've been in here to-day," cried
a short, thickset man, past the prime of life, and who kept a sort of
slop-shop near the quay. "What do you want with me, my lad?"

I was turning to leave the spot without replying, when he closed the
half-door of his shop, and placed his back against it.

"Come, my friend, you shall certainly say what has brought you here, ere
you get away this time."

"I am in search of some one,--I am looking for one of my acquaintances,"
said I, hurriedly.

"And expected to find him here?" added he, half sneeringly.

"Here--anywhere," said I, recklessly.

"Just so; I thought as much. Well, my lad, you had better give a more
satisfactory account of yourself to the commissary. Come along with me
to the police."

"With all my heart," cried I.

"Who are you? Whence do you come?" asked he, with somewhat of kindliness
in his voice.

"These are questions you have no right to ask me, citizen," replied I.

"Well, have I not a right to know why you have been four several times
in my shop this forenoon, and never bought nor asked for anything?"

"That you shall hear freely and frankly," said I; "I have a passport
made out for England, whither I wish to go. The authorities require that
I should have some reference to a citizen of Havre before they allow me
to depart. I am a stranger here,--I know of no one, not even by name.
The whole of this morning I have spent hurrying hither and thither to
find out some one I have seen before, but in vain. All are strangers
to me; none know me. In my wanderings, it may be that I have chanced to
come here as often as you say,--perhaps I have done so in twenty places;
for my head is distracted, and I cannot collect my thoughts. There,
then, is the answer to your inquiry."

"Have you a trade or a handicraft, lad?"

"Not either."

"Nor any means of support?"

"Quite sufficient for all my wants," replied I, boldly; and at the same
time producing my purse, well stored as it was with five-franc pieces.

"Ah, then, you belong to some of the _emigres?_ You are going to join
your family?" asked he, but in a lower and more cautious voice.

"Don't you think that I have been candid enough already, friend?" said
I; "and do you not know sufficient of my affairs, without