canker in the national constitution. Now he opened his eyes as I gazed on him, and shut them again immediately. It was not his habit to be a slug-a-bed, and I recognised that his sleep was feigned. The days of his political influence were each pregnant of astonishing possibilities to him, and he was too finished an epicure to indulge himself with more than the recuperative measure of slumber--frothed, perhaps, with a bead of æsthetic enjoyment in the long minute of waking. “Casimir!” I called softly; but he pretended not to hear me. “What, my friend! the sun is shining, and the eggs of the old serpent of pleasure will be hatching in every kennel.” He opened his eyes at that, fixed and unwinking; but he made no attempt to rise. “Let them crack the shells and wriggle out,” he said. “I have a fancy they will be a poisonous brood, and that La Bourbe is pleasantly remote from their centres of incubation.” “Timorous! I would not lose a thrill in this orgy of liberty.” “But if you lost----?” he checked himself, pursed his lips, and nodded his head on the pillow. “Jean-Louis, I saw the Sieur Julien carried to the scaffold last night. He went foaming and raving of a plot in the prisons to release the aristocrats in their thousands upon us. There is an adder to reproduce itself throughout the city! Truly, as you say, the kennels will swarm with it.” “And many will be bitten? My friend, my friend, there is some dark knowledge in that astute head of yours. And shall I cower at home when my kind are in peril?” “My faith! we all cower in bed.” “But I am going out.” “Be advised!” (He struggled quickly up on his elbow. His face bore a clammy look in the sunlight.) “Be advised and lie close in your form--like a hare, Jean-Louis--like a hare that hears the distant beaters crying on the dogs. Twitch no whisker and prick not an ear. Take solace of your covert and lie close and scratch yourself, and thank God you have a nail for every flea-bite.” “What ails thee of this day then, morose?” “What ails this Paris? Why, the Prussians are in Verdun, and the aristocrats must be forestalled.” “But how, Deputy.” “I do not know. I fear, that is all.” “Well, there lies your sash--the talisman to such puerile emotions.” “Return to bed, Jean-Louis. It is unwise to venture abroad in a thunderstorm.” “It is unwiser to shelter beneath a tree.” “But not a roof-tree. Oh, thou fool! didst thou not close thine eyes last night on a city fermenting like a pan of dough?” “‘Et cette alarme universelle Est l’ouvrage d’un moucheron.’” “But go your way!” he cried, and scrambled out of bed. He walked to the little washstand with an embarrassed air, and set to preparing our morning cup of chocolate from the mill that stood thereon.