the old fellow arose with a friendly _bon jour_, to me, and a
whistle to Lil, who followed him with a supercilious nose in the air.
The despised Schwartz stood a while, and then set out after her at a
ridiculous three-legged run, but before he had gone ten yards he stopped
short, looked after the retreating fair in silence, and then walked off
with a dispirited aspect in the opposite direction.

So far as I could tell, my shadowy enemy with the axe had taken himself
away for good and all, but I was so fearful of recalling him that I kept
altogether idle, and in other respects nursed and coddled myself with a
constant assiduity. But it is a hard thing for a man who has accustomed
himself to constant mental employment to go without it, and in the
absence of pens, ink, and paper, books and journals, the procession bade
fair to be a perfect godsend. Even when the inhabitants of the village
took to rising at four o'clock in the morning, and fanfaronaded with
ill-blown bugles, and flaring torches, and a dreadful untiring drum
about the street, I forbore to grumble, and when on Sundays they turned
out in a body after mass to see their own military section drilled in
the _Place_ of the Hotel de Ville, one bored valetudinarian welcomed
them heartily. The military section had got down uniforms from one of
the Brussels theatres,--busbies and helmets, and the gloriously comic
hats of the _garde civile_,--dragoon tunics, hussar jackets, infantry
shell-jackets, cavalry stable-jackets, foresters' boots, dragoon
jack-boots, stage piratical boots with wide tops to fit the thigh that
drooped about the ankles,--trousers of every sort, from blue broadcloth,
gold-striped, to the homely fustian,--and a rare show they made.
They went fours right or fours left with a fine military jangle, and
sometimes went fours right and fours left at the same time, with results
disastrous to military order. Then it was good to see and hear the fat
Dorn as he caracoled in a field-marshal's uniform, and barked his orders
at the disordered crowd like a field-marshal to the manner born.

Monsieur Dorn being thus gloriously lifted into the range of the public
eye, Lil seemed to take added airs of importance. I say _seemed_, but
that is only because of the foolish and ignorant habit into which I was
born and educated. Ever since I can remember, people have been telling
stories to prove that dogs have some sort of intelligence, as if--except
to the most stupid and