The experience of Miss Beatrice Poles was of the utmost value. She ransacked the shops from morning to night, and bought or ordered a thousand things of which nobody else would have dreamt. So untiring and energetic was she, that one evening, when she was recounting her perigrinations throughout Paris, M, de Morin said to her— "Of course, to accomplish all this, you took a cab?" "A cab!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I never set foot in one except I am absolutely compelled. Any kind of locomotion you like, except that. I never can bring myself to be shut up in those pill-boxes on wheels. The inaction you are condemned to in them worries and frets me to a degree, and would soon wear me out." "Miss Poles," replied the painter, with a countenance irresistibly comic in its immobility, "I should like to point out to you that your pedestrian feats, and your activity generally are also wearing you out. You are a model of proportion—and I am only too happy to do you justice in that respect—but, at the same time, on the score of _embonpoint_, there is, possibly, something to be desired." "And that," replied Miss Poles, "is entirely due to the life of inaction I have led in England for the last two years. Luxury does not suit my temperament at all. In peace and quietness I lose flesh, to regain it as soon as ever I resume an active existence. At the end of a month of Africa you will not recognize me, and, even now, by reason of the life I am leading in Paris, I have gained a pound." "Whereabouts?" asked M. de Morin, absorbed in contemplation, and in the futile attempt to discover the exact locality of the vaunted addition. Dr. Delange was equally zealous in fulfilling the duties which devolved upon him. Having given his word of honour to M. de Morin not to touch a card as long as he remained in Paris, he was anxious to get out of it as quickly as possible, in order that the series of _parties_, promised under the contract, might commence. But if the gambler in him was still unsubdued and burning with an unabated fever for play, the _savant_ and the doctor combined were equally wide awake. Committed, in an unforeseen and eccentric fashion, to an expedition of which, only a fortnight before, he never dreamt, M. Delange, gambling being out of the question, did not in the least regret the engagement into which he had entered. The study of medicine, to a man gifted with intelligence, anxious to learn, and despising the beaten tracks to knowledge, is a perpetual excursion into unknown lands—a veritable voyage of discovery. Thus, the young doctor, who had hitherto made his voyages and carried out his discoveries in his own study, rejoiced at the idea of exploring on a large scale, and in a more active fashion.