infernal alliance of cucumbers and quinine. I passed on in
silence; my very teeth chattered with fear. Happy was I to have them to
chatter! another fortnight of his intimacy, and they would have trembled
from blue-pill as well as panic! With a heavy sigh I paid my bill, and
crossed the street towards the diligence office. One place only remained
vacant--it was in the _banquette_. No matter, thought I, anywhere will
do at present.

'Where is monsieur going?--for there will be a place vacant in the
_coupe_ at--'

'I have not thought of that yet,' said I; 'but when we reach Verviers we
'll see.'

'_Allons_, then,' said the _conducteur_, while he whispered to the clerk
of the office a few words I could not catch.

'You are mistaken, friend,' said I; 'it's not creditors, they are only
chalybeates I 'm running from'; and so we started.

Before I follow out any further my own ramblings, I should like to
acquit a debt I owe my reader--if I dare flatter myself that he cares
for its discharge--by returning to the story of the poor shepherd of
the mountains, and which I cannot more seasonably do than at this place;
although the details I am about to relate were furnished to me a great
many years after this, and during a visit I paid to Lyons in 1828.

In the Cafe de la Coupe d'Or, so conspicuous in the Place des Terreaux,
where I usually resorted to pass my evenings, and indulge in the
cheap luxuries of my coffee and cheroot, I happened to make a bowing
acquaintance with a venerable elderly gentleman, who each night
resorted there to read the papers, and amuse himself by looking over
the chess-players, with which the room was crowded. Some accidental
interchange of newspapers led to a recognition, and that again advanced
to a few words each time we met--till one evening, chance placed us at
the same table, and we chatted away several hours, and parted in the
hope, mutually expressed, of renewing our acquaintance at an early
period.

I had no difficulty in interrogating the _dame du cafe_ about my new
acquaintance. He was a striking and remarkable-looking personage,
tall and military-looking, with an air of _grand seigneur_, which in
a Frenchman is never deceptive; certainly I never saw it successfully
assumed by any who had no right to it. He wore his hair _en queue_, and
in his dress evinced, in several trifling matters, an adherence to
the habitudes of the old regime--so, at least, I interpreted his lace
ruffles and si