dy, and obviously broken to the
most difficult exercises. He had neither the carriage of a swordsman,
nor of a sailor, nor yet of one much inured to the saddle; but something
made up of all these, and the result and expression of many different
habits and dexterities. His features were bold and aquiline; his
expression arrogant and predatory; his whole appearance that of a swift,
violent, unscrupulous man of action; and his copious white hair and the
deep sabre-cut that traversed his nose and temple added a note of
savagery to a head already remarkable and menacing in itself.

In his companion, the Prince of Bohemia, Mr. Rolles was astonished to
recognise the gentleman who had recommended him the study of Gaboriau.
Doubtless Prince Florizel, who rarely visited the club, of which, as of
most others, he was an honorary member, had been waiting for John
Vandeleur when Simon accosted him on the previous evening.

The other diners had modestly retired into the angles of the room, and
left the distinguished pair in a certain isolation, but the young
clergyman was unrestrained by any sentiment of awe, and, marching boldly
up, took his place at the nearest table.

The conversation was, indeed, new to the student's ears. The ex-Dictator
of Paraguay stated many extraordinary experiences in different quarters
of the world; and the Prince supplied a commentary which, to a man of
thought, was even more interesting than the events themselves. Two forms
of experience were thus brought together and laid before the young
clergyman; and he did not know which to admire the most--the desperate
actor or the skilled expert in life; the man who spoke boldly of his own
deeds and perils, or the man who seemed, like a god, to know all things
and to have suffered nothing. The manner of each aptly fitted with his
part in the discourse. The Dictator indulged in brutalities alike of
speech and gesture; his hand opened and shut and fell roughly on the
table; and his voice was loud and heady. The Prince, on the other hand,
seemed the very type of urbane docility and quiet; the least movement,
the least inflection, had with him a weightier significance than all the
shouts and pantomime of his companion; and if ever, as must frequently
have been the case, he described some experience personal to himself, it
was so aptly dissimulated as to pass unnoticed with the rest.

At length the talk wandered on to the late robberies and the Rajah's
Diamond.

"