. It appears that he had met the swindlers at a
restaurant."

"Since I have been in Russia," Jameson added, "I have often thought that
I knew what language it was that was talked behind the door that night
in the inn at Salzheim, but now I know it was Russian."

JEAN FRANCOIS

Jean Francois was a vagabond by nature, a balladmonger by profession.
Like many poets in many times, he found that the business of writing
verse was more amusing than lucrative; and he was constrained to
supplement the earnings of his pen and his guitar by other and more
profitable work. He had run away from what had been his home at the age
of seven (he was a foundling, and his adopted father was a shoe-maker),
without having learnt a trade. When the necessity arose he decided
to supplement the art of balladmongering by that of stealing. He was
skilful in both arts: he wrote verse, sang ballads, picked pockets (in
the city), and stole horses (in the country) with equal facility and
success. Some of his verse has reached posterity, for instance the
"Ballads du Paradis Peint," which he wrote on white vellum, and
illustrated himself with illuminations in red, blue and gold, for the
Dauphin. It ends thus in the English version of a Balliol scholar:--

Prince, do not let your nose, your Royal nose,
Your large Imperial nose get out of joint;
Forbear to criticise my perfect prose--
Painting on vellum is my weakest point.

Again, the _ballade_ of which the "Envoi" runs:--

Prince, when you light your pipe with radium spills,
Especially invented for the King--
Remember this, the worst of human ills:
Life without matches is a dismal thing,

is, in reality, only a feeble adaptation of his "Priez pour feu le vrai
tresor de vie."

But although Jean Francois was not unknown during his lifetime, and
although, as his verse testifies, he knew his name would live among
those of the enduring poets after his death, his life was one of rough
hardship, brief pleasures, long anxieties, and constant uncertainty.
Sometimes for a few days at a time he would live in riotous luxury,
but these rare epochs would immediately be succeeded by periods of want
bordering on starvation. Besides which he was nearly always in peril
of his life; the shadow of the gallows darkened his merriment, and the
thought of the wheel made bitter his joy. Yet in spite of this hazardous
and harassing life, in spite of the sharp and sudde