ables, men older, better dressed, probably shop-keepers,
were playing dominos. Graham scrutinized these last, but among them
all could detect no one corresponding to his ideal of the Vicomte de
Mauleon. "Probably," thought he, "I am too late, or perhaps he will not
be here this evening. At all events, I will wait a quarter of an hour."
Then, the garcon approaching his table, he deemed it necessary to call
for something, and, still in strong English accent, asked for lemonade
and an evening journal. The garcon nodded and went his way. A monsieur
at the round table next his own politely handed to him the "Galignani,"
saying in very good English, though unmistakably the good English of a
Frenchman, "The English journal, at your service."

Graham bowed his head, accepted the "Galignani," and inspected his
courteous neighbour. A more respectable-looking man no Englishman could
see in an English country town. He wore an unpretending flaxen wig, with
limp whiskers that met at the chin, and might originally have been
the same colour as the wig, but were now of a pale gray,--no beard,
no mustache. He was dressed with the scrupulous cleanliness of a sober
citizen,--a high white neckcloth, with a large old-fashioned pin,
containing a little knot of hair covered with glass or crystal,
and bordered with a black framework, in which were inscribed
letters,--evidently a mourning pin, hallowed to the memory of lost
spouse or child,--a man who, in England, might be the mayor of a
cathedral town, at least the town-clerk. He seemed suffering from some
infirmity of vision, for he wore green spectacles. The expression of
his face was very mild and gentle; apparently he was about sixty years
old,--somewhat more.

Graham took kindly to his neighbour, insomuch that, in return for the
"Galignani," he offered him a cigar, lighting one himself.

His neighbour refused politely.

"Merci! I never smoke, never; mon medecin forbids it. If I could be
tempted, it would be by, an English cigar. Ah, how you English beat us
in all things,--your ships, your iron, your tabac,--which you do not
grow!"

This speech rendered literally as we now render it may give the idea of
a somewhat vulgar speaker. But there was something in the man's manner,
in his smile, in his courtesy, which did not strike Graham as vulgar;
on the contrary, he thought within himself, "How instinctive to all
Frenchmen good breeding is!"

Before, however, Graham had time to explain t