g that
he was reading the _Rappel_, I conversed "liberally." I told him that I
had been captain of barricades in Forty-eight, and described in full the
taking of the Tuileries. His blood was fired, and he confided to me all
the details of a grand plot for a Revolution which he was going up to
Paris to attend to, and offered me a prominent place among the
conspirators, assuring me that I should have a glorious opportunity to
fight again at the barricades! I was appalled at his want of discretion,
but said nothing. Sure enough, there came the _emeute_ of the
plebiscite, as he had predicted, but it was suppressed. George Boker
wrote to me: "When I heard of a revolution in Paris, I knew at once that
you must have arrived and had got to work." And when I told him that I
knew of it in advance, and had had a situation offered me as leader, he
dryly replied, "Oh, I suppose so--as a matter of course." It was
certainly a strange coincidence that I left Paris in Forty-eight as a
Revolutionary _suspect_, and re-entered it in 1870 in very nearly the
same capacity.

We found agreeable lodgings at the Rond Point of the Champs Elysees. The
day after our arrival I determined to arrange the terms of living with
our landlord. He and his wife had the reputation of being fearful screws
in their "items." So he, thinking I was a newly arrived and perfectly
ignorant American, began to draw the toils, and enumerate so much for the
rooms, so much for every towel, so much, I believe, for salt and every
spoon and fork. I asked him how much he would charge for everything in
the lump. He replied, "_Mais_, _Monsieur_, _nous ne faisons pas jamais
comme cela a Paris_." Out of all patience, I burst out into vernacular:
"_Sacre nom de Dieu et mille tonnerres_, _vieux galopin_! you dare to
tell _me_, a _vieux carabin du Quartier Latin_, that you cannot make
arrangements! _Et depuisse-quand_, _s'il vous plait_?" {372} He stared
at me in blank amazement, and then said with a smile: "_Tiens_! _Monsieur
est donc de nous_!" "That I am," I replied, and we at once made a
satisfactory compromise.

We had pleasant friends, and saw the sights and shopped; but I began to
feel in Paris for the first time that the dreaded break-down or collapse
which I had long apprehended was coming over me. There was a very clever
surgeon and physician named Laborde, who was called Nelaton's right-hand
man. I met him several times, and he observed to a mutual fri