ffalo; Tete Rouge of theaters and oyster cellars. Henry had led a life
of hardship and privation; Tete Rouge never had a whim which he would
not gratify at the first moment he was able. Henry moreover was the
most disinterested man I ever saw; while Tete Rouge, though equally
good-natured in his way, cared for nobody but himself. Yet we would
not have lost him on any account; he admirably served the purpose of
a jester in a feudal castle; our camp would have been lifeless without
him. For the past week he had fattened in a most amazing manner; and
indeed this was not at all surprising, since his appetite was most
inordinate. He was eating from morning till night; half the time he
would be at work cooking some private repast for himself, and he paid
a visit to the coffee-pot eight or ten times a day. His rueful and
disconsolate face became jovial and rubicund, his eyes stood out like
a lobster's, and his spirits, which before were sunk to the depths of
despondency, were now elated in proportion; all day he was singing,
whistling, laughing, and telling stories. Being mortally afraid of Jim
Gurney, he kept close in the neighborhood of our tent. As he had seen an
abundance of low dissipated life, and had a considerable fund of
humor, his anecdotes were extremely amusing, especially since he never
hesitated to place himself in a ludicrous point of view, provided he
could raise a laugh by doing so. Tete Rouge, however, was sometimes
rather troublesome; he had an inveterate habit of pilfering provisions
at all times of the day. He set ridicule at utter defiance; and being
without a particle of self-respect, he would never have given over his
tricks, even if they had drawn upon him the scorn of the whole party.
Now and then, indeed, something worse than laughter fell to his share;
on these occasions he would exhibit much contrition, but half an hour
after we would generally observe him stealing round to the box at the
back of the cart and slyly making off with the provisions which Delorier
had laid by for supper. He was very fond of smoking; but having no
tobacco of his own, we used to provide him with as much as he wanted, a
small piece at a time. At first we gave him half a pound together, but
this experiment proved an entire failure, for he invariably lost not
only the tobacco, but the knife intrusted to him for cutting it, and a
few minutes after he would come to us with many apologies and beg for
more.

We had been two day