Europe, England undertook to pay an indemnity in ready
money at the Bank of England of five-hundred millions sterling.

* * *

As a cordon of French troops was keeping back the sullen crowd that
thronged the space in front of the Royal Exchange and watched the
waggons heavily laden with the bullion that was about to be transferred
to the South-Eastern Railway for transmission to France, a tall, elastic
figure wearing a high shirt-collar, pushed eagerly up the steps of the
Mansion House, and gazed reflectively at the scene that was being
enacted below. Presently some one touched it. It turned.

"Ha! Sir EDWARD," was the bright recognition, "who would ever have
thought of meeting you again, and who would ever have conceived," the
cheery voice continued, "that our little compact should have ended in
this!" The speaker pointed with a significant smile to the waggons of
bullion lumbering beneath. "Well," responded the other with a suggestive
dryness, "my support got you into power at any rate!"

A marvellous brightness overspread the features of his interlocutor.
"Yes, it did," he replied, "and though I am quite confident that
posterity will say it was worth the price, I see," he added airily,
waving his hand in the direction of the Bank, "that at the present
moment it is apparently being _paid in full_!"

* * * * *

[Illustration: REMARKS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNANSWERED.

"WELL, GOOD-BYE, DEAR MRS. JONES. I'M AFRAID I'VE PUT YOU OUT BY CALLING
AT THIS UNEARTHLY HOUR."

"OH, I HOPE I DIDN'T SHOW IT!"]

* * * * *

SALUBRITIES ABROAD.

_Hotel Continental, Royat._--Our party here (which, somehow or another,
PULLER has contrived to get together and introduce to each other by the
simple means of inducing M. HALL to give us a room to ourselves for a
small _table-d'hote_ at the un-Royat-like hour of 7.30) consists of La
Contessa CASANOVA, the English wife of an Italian merchant, the head of
a large house of business in London--she is Marchesa or Contessa, I am
not certain which, but PULLER styles her _Miladi_ and _Madame_. She is
devoted to the serious Drama, and her pet subject is SALVINI in
_Othello_. Her daughter, an elegant young English girl, lively, amusing,
and with a bias in favour of the very lightest forms of theatrical
entertainment.

Then we have Madame METTERBRUN and her daughters, Anglo-Germans,
thorough musicians, with WAGNER a