row street in erratic puffs, heavily laden with odors
of broken boughs and torn flowers, skimmed the little pools of
rain-water in the deep ruts of the unpaved street, and suddenly went
away to nothing, like a juggler's butterflies or a young man's money.

It was very picturesque, the Rue Royale. The rich and poor met together.
The locksmith's swinging key creaked next door to the bank; across the
way, crouching mendicant-like in the shadow of a great importing house,
was the mud laboratory of the mender of broken combs. Light balconies
overhung the rows of showy shops and stores open for trade this Sunday
morning, and pretty Latin faces of the higher class glanced over their
savagely pronged railings upon the passers below. At some windows hung
lace curtains, flannel duds at some, and at others only the scraping and
sighing one-hinged shutter groaning toward Paris after its neglectful
master.

M. St.-Ange stood looking up and down the street for nearly an hour. But
few ladies, only the inveterate mass-goers, were out. About the entrance
of the frequent _cafe's_ the masculine gentility stood leaning on canes,
with which now one and now another beckoned to Jules, some even adding
pantomimic hints of the social cup.

M. St.-Ange remarked to his servant without turning his head that
somehow he felt sure he should soon return those _bons_ that the mulatto
had lent him.

"What will you do with them?"

"Me!" said Baptiste, quickly; "I will go and see the bull-fight in the
Place Congo."

"There is to be a bull-fight? But where is M. Cayetano?"

"Ah, got all his affairs wet in the tornado. Instead of his circus, they
are to have a bull-fight--not an ordinary bull-fight with sick horses,
but a buffalo-and-tiger fight. I would not miss it--"

Two or three persons ran to the opposite corner, and commenced striking
at something with their canes. Others followed. Can M. St.-Ange and
servant, who hasten forward--can the Creoles, Cubans, Spaniards, San
Domingo refugees, and other loungers--can they hope it is a fight? They
hurry forward. Is a man in a fit? The crowd pours in from the
side-streets. Have they killed a so-long snake? Bareheaded shopmen leave
their wives, who stand upon chairs. The crowd huddles and packs. Those
on the outside make little leaps into the air, trying to be tall.

"What is the matter?"

"Have they caught a real live rat?"

"Who is hurt?" asks some one in English.

"_Personne_," replies a shopk