liquors),
and in the disagreeable Provencal dialect, which must have altered
strangely since the time of the _troubadours_: brief as his speech was,
it found room for more than one of those expletives which are nowhere so
horribly blasphemous as in the south of France.

Cecil had started slightly at the first interjection, which broke her
day-dream, but she was not otherwise alarmed or discomposed: she seemed
to regard the _proprietaire_ simply as an unpleasant obstacle to their
progress, and glanced at Mr. Fullarton as if she expected him to clear
it away. The latter was not good at French, but he did manage to express
their sorrow if they had done any harm unconsciously, and their wish to
retire instantly. "Not before paying," was the reply. "_Quinze francs de
dedommagemens; et puis, filez aux tous les diables!_"

Women are not expected to carry purses or any other objects of simple
utility; but why Mr. Fullarton should have left his at home on this
particular day is between himself and his own conscience. The party very
soon realized the fact that they could muster about a hundred and fifty
centimes among them.

Even kings and kaisers, when _incogniti_, have ere this been reduced to
the extremest straits of ignominy from the want of a few available
pieces of silver; and, in ordinary life, five shillings ready at the
moment are frequently of more importance than as many hundreds in
expectancy. There lives even now a man who missed the most charming
rendezvous with which fortune ever favored him, because he rode a mile
round to avoid a turnpike, not having wherewithal to pay it. Since that
disastrous day he is ever furnished with such a weight of small change
that, had Cola Pesce carried it, the strong swimmer must have sunk like
a stone--in penance, probably, even as James of Scotland wore the iron
belt. At a pause in the conversation you may hear him rattling the
coppers in his pocket moodily, as the spectres in old romances rattle
their chains; but his remorse is unavailing. A fair chance once lost,
Whist and Erycina never forgive. The beautiful bird that might _then_
have been limed and tamed shook her wings and flew away exultingly: far
up in air the unlucky fowler may still sometimes hear her clear mocking
carol, but she is too near heaven for his arts to reach, and has escaped
the toils forever.

On the present occasion Katie Fullarton "flashed" her one half-franc
with great courage and confidence, but the d