ty lightness
with which, after saluting, he replaced his miserable hat on the favored
side of his head, that conveyed the whole story of the man.

What a model for my imitation had he been, thought I, if I had seen him
in the outset of life! what a study he had presented! And yet there he
was, evidently in needy circumstances, pressed on by even urgent want,
and I, Con Cregan, the outcast, the poor, friendless street-runner, had
become a "millionnaire."

I don't know how it was, but certainly I felt marvellously ill at ease
with my new friend. A real aristocrat, with all the airs of assumption
and haughtiness, would have been a blessing compared with the submissive
softness of the "Chevalier." Through all his flattery there seemed a
sly consciousness that his honeyed words were a snare, and his smile
a delusion; and I could never divest myself of the feeling that he saw
into the very secret of my heart, and knew me thoroughly.

I must become his dupe, thought I, or it is all over with me. The fellow
will detect me for a "parvenu" long before we reach Malaga!

No man born and bred to affluence could have acquired the keen insight
into life that I possessed. I must mask this knowledge, then, if I would
still be thought a "born gentleman." This was a wise resolve,--at least,
its effects were immediately such as I hoped for. The Chevalier's little
sly sarcasms, his half-insinuated "equivoques," were changed for a tone
of wonder and admiration for all I said. How one so young could have
seen and learned so much!--what natural gifts I must possess!--how
remarkably just my views were!--how striking the force of my
observations!--and all this while I was discoursing what certainly does
not usually pass for "consummate wisdom." I soon saw that the Chevalier
set me down for a fool; and from that moment we changed places,--_he_
became the dupe versus _me_. To be sure, the contrivance cost me
something, as we usually spent the evenings at piquet or ecarte, and the
consul was the luckiest of men; to use his own phrase, applied to one he
once spoke of, "savait corriger la fortune."

Although he spoke freely of the fashionable world of Paris and London,
with all whose celebrities he affected a near intimacy, he rarely
touched upon his New World experiences, and blinked all allusion
whatever to the republic of "Campecho." His own history was
comprised in the brief fact that he was the cadet of a great family
of Provence,--all your