e! how you tink milady travel mit dass schweinerei?"

"It 's not pork; 't is mutton, and a pigeon in the middle," said Dalton,
mistaking his meaning. "I brought a taste of cheese, too; but it 's a
trifle high, and maybe it 's as well not to send it."

"Is the leetle old man to go too?" asked Gregoire, with an insolent
grin, and not touching the profanation of either cheese or basket.

"That 's my own servant, and he 's not going," said Dalton; "and now
that you know my orders, just stir yourself a little, my chap, for I 'm
not going to spend my time here with you."

A very deliberate stare, without uttering a word, was all the reply
Gregoire returned to this speech; and then, addressing himself to the
helpers, he gave some orders in German about the other trunks. Dalton
waited patiently for some minutes, but no marks of attention showed that
the courier even remembered his presence; and at last he said,

"I 'm waiting to see that trunk put up; d' ye hear me?"

"I hear ver well, but I mind noting at all," said Gregoire, with a grin.

"Oh, that 's it," said Dalton, smiling, but with a twinkle in his
gray eyes that, had the other known him better, he would scarcely have
fancied, "that's it, then!" And taking the umbrella from beneath Andy's
arm, he walked deliberately across the yard to where a large tank stood,
and which, fed from a small jet d'eau, served as a watering-place for
the post-horses. Some taper rods of ice now stood up in the midst, and a
tolerably thick coating covered the surface of the basin.

Gregoire could not help watching the proceedings of the stranger, as
with the iron-shod umbrella he smashed the ice in one or two places,
piercing the mass till the water spouted up through the apertures.

"Have you any friend who live dere?" said the courier, sneeringly, as
the sound of the blows resembled the noise of a door-knocker.

"Not exactly, my man," said Dalton, calmly; "but something like it."

"What is 't you do, den?" asked Gregoire, curiously.

"I'll tell you," said Dalton. "I'm breaking the ice for a new
acquaintance;" and, as he spoke, he seized the courier by the stout
leather belt which he wore around his waist, and, notwithstanding his
struggles and his weight, he jerked him off the ground, and, with a
swing, would have hurled him head foremost into the tank, when, the
leather giving way, he fell heavily to the ground, almost senseless from
shock and fright together. "You may thank that