cafe; and Charles had ordered the punch, and
seated himself at a vacant table before he replied. "What will come of
these times? I will tell thee. National deliverance and regeneration
through the ascendency of the National Guard."

"Eh? I don't take," said Armand, bewildered.

"Probably not," answered Charles, with an air of compassionate conceit;
"thou art a dreamer, but I am a politician." He tapped his forehead
significantly. "At this custom-house, ideas are examined before they are
passed."

Armand gazed at his brother wistfully, and with a defence he rarely
manifested towards any one who disputed his own claims to superior
intelligence. Charles was a few years older than Monnier; he was of
large build; he had shaggy lowering eyebrows, a long obstinate
upper lip, the face of a man who was accustomed to lay down the law.
Inordinate self-esteem often gives that character to a physiognomy
otherwise commonplace. Charles passed for a deep thinker in his own
set, which was a very different set from Armand's--not among workmen but
small shopkeepers. He had risen in life to a grade beyond Armand's; he
had always looked to the main chance, married the widow of a hosier and
glover much older than himself, and in her right was a very respectable
tradesman, comfortably well off; a Liberal, of course, but a Liberal
bourgeois, equally against those above him and those below. Needless
to add that he had no sympathy with his brother's socialistic opinions.
Still he loved that brother as well as he could love any one except
himself. And Armand, who was very affectionate, and with whom family
ties were very strong, returned that love with ample interest; and
though so fiercely at war with the class to which Charles belonged, was
secretly proud of having a brother who was of that class. So in
England I have known the most violent antagonist of the landed
aristocracy--himself a cobbler--who interrupts a discourse on the crimes
of the aristocracy by saying, "Though I myself descend from a county
family."

In an evil day Charles Monnier, enrolled in the National Guard, had
received promotion in that patriotic corps. From that date he began to
neglect his shop, to criticise military matters, and to think that if
merit had fair play he should be a Cincinnatus or a Washington, he had
not decided which.

"Yes," resumed Charles, ladling out the punch, "thou hast wit enough
to perceive that our generals are imbeciles or traitors; that g