who once ordered me under arrest for
insubordination; and it is possible that a spice of vengeance added to
the rigour of my picture. I have forgotten the details; no doubt they
were high-coloured. No doubt I rejoiced to fool these jolter-heads; and
no doubt the sense of security that I drank from their dull, gasping
faces encouraged me to proceed extremely far. And for my sins, there was
one silent little man at table who took my story at the true value. It
was from no sense of humour, to which he was quite dead. It was from no
particular intelligence, for he had not any. The bond of sympathy, of
all things in the world, had rendered him clairvoyant.

Dinner was no sooner done than I strolled forth into the streets with
some design of viewing the cathedral; and the little man was silently at
my heels. A few doors from the inn, in a dark place of the street, I was
aware of a touch on my arm, turned suddenly, and found him looking up at
me with eyes pathetically bright.

"I beg your pardon, sir; but that story of yours was particularly rich.
He--he! Particularly racy," said he. "I tell you, sir, I took you
wholly! I _smoked_ you! I believe you and I, sir, if we had a chance to
talk, would find we had a good many opinions in common. Here is the
'Blue Bell,' a very comfortable place. They draw good ale, sir. Would
you be so condescending as to share a pot with me?"

There was something so ambiguous and secret in the little man's
perpetual signalling, that I confess my curiosity was much aroused.
Blaming myself, even as I did so, for the indiscretion, I embraced his
proposal, and we were soon face to face over a tankard of mulled ale. He
lowered his voice to the least attenuation of a whisper.

"Here, sir," said he, "is to the Great Man. I think you take me? No?" He
leaned forward till our noses touched. "Here is to the Emperor!" said
he.

I was extremely embarrassed, and, in spite of the creature's innocent
appearance, more than half alarmed. I thought him too ingenuous, and,
indeed, too daring for a spy. Yet if he were honest he must be a man of
extraordinary indiscretion, and therefore very unfit to be encouraged by
an escaped prisoner. I took a half course, accordingly--accepted his
toast in silence, and drank it without enthusiasm.

He proceeded to abound in the praises of Napoleon, such as I had never
heard in France, or at least only on the lips of officials paid to offer
them.

"And this Caffarelli, now," h