broke out,
and young and old, men and women, even to the most farouche gens-d'armes,
all appearing incapable of controlling the desire for merriment my most
singular figure inspired; and unfortunately this emotion seemed to
promise no very speedy conclusion; for the jokes and witticisms made upon
my appearance threatened to renew the festivities, ad libitum.

"Regardez donc ses epaules," said one.

"Ah, mon Dieu! Il me fait l'idee d'une grenouille aves ses jambes
jaunes," cried another.

"Il vaut son pesant de fromage pour une Vaudeville," said the director of
the strolling theatre of the place.

"I'll give seventy francs a week, 'd'appointment,' and 'Scribe' shall
write a piece express for himself, if he'll take it."

"May the devil fly away with your grinning baboon faces," said I, as I
rushed up the stairs again, pursued by the mob at full cry; scarcely,
however, had I reached the top step, when the rough hand of the
gen-d'arme seized me by the shoulder, while he said in a low, husky
voice, "c'est inutile, Monsieur, you cannot escape--the thing was well
contrived, it is true; but the gens-d'armes of France are not easily
outwitted, and you could not have long avoided detection, even in that
dress." It was my turn to laugh now, which, to their very great
amazement, I did, loud and long; that I should have thought my present
costume could ever have been the means of screening me from observation,
however it might have been calculated to attract it, was rather too
absurd a supposition even for the mayor of a village to entertain;
besides, it only now occurred to me that I was figuring in the character
of a prisoner. The continued peals of laughing which this mistake on
their part elicited from me seemed to afford but slight pleasure to my
captor, who gruffly said--

"When you have done amusing yourself, mon ami, perhaps you will do us the
favour to come before the mayor."

"Certainly," I replied; "but you will first permit me to resume my own
clothes, I am quite sick of masquerading 'en postillion.'"

"Not so fast, my friend," said the suspicious old follower of Fouche
--"not so fast; it is but right the maire should see you in the disguise
you attempted your escape in. It must be especially mentioned in the
proces verbal."

"Well, this is becoming too ludicrous," said I. "It need not take five
minutes to satisfy you why, how, and where, I put on these confounded
rags--"

"Then tell it to the maire, at