ho evidently by no means approved of the
attention, and interest which they excited among the ladies; and
who had made several sarcastic remarks, during the course of the
narrative. Presently a servant came in and, walking up to Monsieur
Teclier, said that two swords had been picked up; had they fallen
from the balloon?

"Yes," Monsieur Teclier said, "they belong to those gentlemen."

The servant came up to Ralph, and told him that the swords had been
picked up. Ralph at once drew out a five-franc piece, and asked the
servant to give it to the man who had found them.

"Ah," said the officer of Mobiles, with a scarcely concealed sneer,
"so you have come out from Paris to serve? I should have imagined
that there were plenty of opportunities to distinguish yourselves,
there. However, you must have had good interest, to get places in a
balloon."

"We have fair interest," Ralph said calmly, "as apparently you
have, yourself. Each of us have, you see, used our interest in the
way most pleasing to us. We have used ours to enable us to go with
the army in the field, instead of being forced to remain inactive
in Paris. You, upon your part, have used yours to get away from the
army in the field, and to remain inactive, here."

These words were spoken with such an air of boyish frankness, and
an apparent innocence of any desire to say anything unpleasant,
that everyone within hearing was ready to burst with laughter at
Ralph's hit--which happened to be thoroughly well deserved.

The officer turned white; and would have burst out into a violent
answer, had not a couple of friends at his elbow begged him to
restrain himself. The boy evidently meant nothing; besides, he was
only a boy, and what could be done with him? Besides which, again,
one of them put in, though he was only a boy, he looked an awkward
customer. This latter argument weighed more with the lieutenant
than any other.

Ralph was not yet seventeen, and looked much younger than a French
lad of the same age would do; but in point of size he was
considerably taller than the officer of Mobiles, and his broad
shoulders gave promise of unusual strength. There was, too, a look
of fearlessness and decision about his face which marked him
emphatically as an "awkward customer." Seeing this, the lieutenant
burst into a constrained fit of laughter; and said that it was
"very good--really very good, for a boy."

Everyone else was so occupied in the endeavor to stifle the