o his amiable neighbour
the politico-economical principle according to which England, growing no
tobacco, had tobacco much better than France, which did grow it, a rosy
middle-aged monsieur made his appearance, saying hurriedly to Graham's
neighbour, "I'm afraid I'm late, but there is still a good half-hour
before us if you will give me my revenge."

"Willingly, Monsieur Georges. Garcon, the dominos."

"Have you been playing at billiards?" asked M. Georges.

"Yes, two games."

"With success?"

"I won the first, and lost the second through the defect of my
eyesight; the game depended on a stroke which would have been easy to an
infant,--I missed it."

Here the dominos arrived, and M. Georges began shuffling them; the other
turned to Graham and asked politely if he understood the game.

"A little, but not enough to comprehend why it is said to require so
much skill."

"It is chiefly an affair of memory with me; but M. Georges, my opponent,
has the talent of combination, which I have not."

"Nevertheless," replied M. Georges, gruffly, "you are not easily beaten;
it is for you to play first, Monsieur Lebeau." Graham almost started.
Was it possible! This mild, limp-whiskered, flaxen-wigged man Victor de
Mauleon, the Don Juan of his time; the last person in the room he should
have guessed. Yet, now examining his neighbour with more attentive
eye, he wondered at his stupidity in not having recognized at once the
ci-devant gentilhomme and beau garcon. It happens frequently that our
imagination plays us this trick; we form to ourselves an idea of some
one eminent for good or for evil,--a poet, a statesman, a general, a
murderer, a swindler, a thief. The man is before us, and our ideas have
gone into so different a groove that he does not excite a suspicion; we
are told who he is, and immediately detect a thousand things that ought
to have proved his identity.

Looking thus again with rectified vision at the false Lebeau, Graham
observed an elegance and delicacy of feature which might, in youth, have
made the countenance very handsome, and rendered it still good-looking,
nay, prepossessing. He now noticed, too, the slight Norman accent,
its native harshness of breadth subdued into the modulated tones which
bespoke the habits of polished society. Above all, as M. Lebeau moved
his dominos with one hand, not shielding his pieces with the other (as
M. Georges warily did), but allowing it to rest carelessly on the table,