ommonplaces, but in words
that made you feel it had given him real pleasure. At first, whenever
Jules made one of his caustic remarks, he looked quite pained, but
suddenly seemed to make up his mind that it was bark, not bite; and then
at each of them he would turn to me and say, "Aha! that's good--isn't
it?" With every glass of wine he became more gentle and more genial,
sitting very upright, and tightly buttoned-in; while the little white
wings of his moustache seemed about to leave him for a better world.

In spite of the most leading questions, however, we could not get him to
talk about himself, for even Jules, most cynical of men, had recognised
that he was a hero of romance. He would answer gently and precisely, and
then sit twisting his moustaches, perfectly unconscious that we wanted
more. Presently, as the wine went a little to his head, his thin, high
voice grew thinner, his cheeks became flushed, his eyes brighter; at the
end of dinner he said: "I hope I have not been noisy."

We assured him that he had not been noisy enough. "You're laughing at
me," he answered. "Surely I've been talking all the time!"

"Mon Dieu!" said Jules, "we have been looking for some fables of your
wars; but nothing--nothing, not enough to feed a frog!"

The old fellow looked troubled.

"To be sure!" he mused. "Let me think! there is that about Colhoun
at Gettysburg; and there's the story of Garibaldi and the Miller." He
plunged into a tale, not at all about himself, which would have been
extremely dull, but for the conviction in his eyes, and the way he
stopped and commented. "So you see," he ended, "that's the sort of
man Garibaldi was! I could tell you another tale of him." Catching an
introspective look in Jules's eye, however, I proposed taking our cigars
over to the cafe opposite.

"Delightful!" the old fellow said: "We shall have a band and the fresh
air, and clear consciences for our cigars. I cannot like this smoking in
a room where there are ladies dining."

He walked out in front of us, smoking with an air of great enjoyment.
Jules, glowing above his candid shirt and waistcoat, whispered to me,
"Mon cher Georges, how he is good!" then sighed, and added darkly: "The
poor man!"

We sat down at a little table. Close by, the branches of a plane-tree
rustled faintly; their leaves hung lifeless, speckled like the breasts
of birds, or black against the sky; then, caught by the breeze,
fluttered suddenly.

The old fello