embittered by their first and not very creditable defeat under their own
walls. I do not suppose there were more than a score of Englishmen in
Paris, besides the Irishmen engaged in salting beef at the
slaughter-house of La Villette, when, but for that gentleman, I should
have been in a sore strait. Among the English, there was a groom who, at
the time of the general exodus, was so dangerously ill that the doctor
absolutely forbade his removal, even to a hospital. The case had been
brought under my notice, and as the poor fellow was very respectable and
had been hard-working, as he had a wife and a young family besides, we
not only did all we could for him, but I went to see him personally two
or three times to cheer him up a bit. He was on the mend, but slowly,
very slowly. He lived in one of the side streets of the Avenue de
Clichy, and had lived there a good while, and the concierge of the house
had her mind perfectly at rest with regard to his nationality, albeit
that the fact of being an Englishman was not always a sufficient
guarantee against the suspicion of being a spy on the part of the lower
classes. Moreover, they would not always take the fact for granted; they
were unable to distinguish an English from a German or any other accent,
and, with them, to be a foreigner was necessarily to be a German, and a
German could not be anything but a spy. However, in this instance, I
felt no anxiety for my protege.

Unfortunately, a few days before the closing of Paris, the concierge
herself fell ill, and another one took her place. The successor was a
man, and not by any means a pleasant man. There was a scowl on his face,
as, in answer to his summons, I told him whither I was going; and he
cast a suspicious look at a box I was carrying under my arm, which
happened to contain nothing more formidable than a surgical appliance. I
took no notice, however, and mounted the stairs.

My visit may have lasted between twenty minutes and half an hour. When I
came out, a considerable crowd had assembled on the footway and in the
road, and a dozen National Guards were ranged in a semicircle in front
of the door.

The first cry that greeted me was "Le voila," and then a corporal
advanced. "Your name, citizen," he said, in a hectoring tone, "and what
brings you to this house?" I kept very cool, and told him that I would
neither give him my name nor an explanation of my visit, but that if he
would take me to his lieutenant or capta