ls you 'liar' and 'blockhead'?"

"Oh, Monsieur,"--displaying a silver dollar with an expressive shrug
of the shoulders--"this is the--what you call it?--balm."

"And very good balm, too," said Barnes, heartily.

Still grumbling to himself, the marquis reached the main corridor,
where the scene was almost as animated as in the bar and where the
principal topic of conversation seemed to be horses and races that had
been or were about to be run. "I'd put Uncle Rastus' mule against that
hoss!" "That four-year-old's quick as a runaway nigger!" "Five
hundred, the gelding beats the runaway nigger!" "Any takers on Jolly
Rogers?" were among the snatches of talk which lent life and zest to
the various groups.

Sitting moodily in a corner, with legs crossed and hat upon his knee,
was a young man whose careless glance wandered from time to time from
his cigar to the passing figures. As the marquis slowly hobbled along,
with an effort to appear alert, the young man arose quickly and came
forward with a conventional smile, intercepting the old nobleman near
the door.

"My dear Monsieur le Marquis," he exclaimed, effusively, "it is with
pleasure I see you recovered from your recent indisposition."

"Recovered!" almost shrieked the marquis. "I'm far from recovered; I'm
worse than ever. I detest congratulations, Monsieur! It's what a lying
world always does when you are on the verge of dissolution."

"You are as discerning as ever," murmured the land baron--for it was
Edward Mauville.

"I'm not fit to be around; I only came out"--with a sardonic
chuckle--"because the doctors said it would be fatal."

"Surely you do not desire--"

"To show them they are impostors? Yes."

"And does New Orleans continue to please you?" asked the other, with
some of that pride Southerners entertained in those days for their
queen city.

"How does the exile like the forced land of his adoption?" returned
the nobleman, irritably. "My king is in exile. Why should I not be
also? Should I stay there, herd with the cattle, call every shipjack
'Citizen' and every clod 'Brother'; treat every scrub as though she
were a duchess?"

"There is, indeed, a regrettable tendency to deify common clay
nowadays," assented the patroon, soothingly.

"Why, your 'Citizen' regards it as condescension to notice a man of
condition!" said the marquis, violently. "When my king was driven away
by the rabble the ocean was not too broad to separate me from a
swinish civ