declaring that the dinner was
excellent, and went on to say that this was the more fortunate because
it would assuredly be the last they should eat in this world; that as
for the bill, he must be good enough to excuse payment, inasmuch as
neither of them possessed a farthing. He explained that they would never
have played him so sorry a joke had it not been that, finding themselves
overwhelmed by the troubles and anxieties of the world, they had
resolved to enjoy a good meal once more, and then to take leave of
existence. The first portion of their project they had satisfactorily
carried out, thanks to the excellence of Monsieur's _cuisine_ and
cellar, and the second would not be long delayed, since the coffee and
the brandy had been mixed with a drug which would help them to pay all
their debts.

The landlord was furious. He did not believe a word of the young man's
oration, and declared he would hand them over to the commissary of
police. Eventually he allowed them to leave on their furnishing him with
their address.

The following day, impelled half by a wish to get his money, and half by
a fear that they might have spoken in earnest, he repaired to the
address they had given him, and learned that the two unfortunate young
men had been found that morning lying on a bed which one of them had
hired some weeks before. They were dead, and their bodies already cold.

On a small table in the room lay several papers covered with writing;
all of them breathed the desire to attain renown without difficulty and
without work, and expressed the utmost contempt for those who consented
to gain their livelihood by the sweat of their brow. There were several
quotations from Victor Hugo, and a request that their names and the
manner of their death might be published in the newspapers.

It is a pity that their yearning for posthumous notoriety was gratified,
inasmuch as the sentimental articles written to order by dexterous pens,
and the verses composed in honour of the two lunatics by Beranger, in
which a romantic halo is thrown over their audacious crime,

"Et vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main"...

encouraged, it is to be feared, a suicidal mania.

We have hinted that Mrs. Trollope's strength lay in her faculty of
observation, and her strong, pungent humour. Occasionally, however, she
ventures on a vein of reflection, and not without success. For instance,
her observations upon