“Tie up the money in your pocket-handkerchief, my worthy sir,” said the old soldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap of gold. “Tie it up, as we used to tie up a bit of dinner in the Grand Army; your winnings are too heavy for any breeches-pockets that ever were sewed. There! that’s it--shovel them in, notes and all! _Credie!_ what luck! Stop! another napoleon on the floor! _Ah! sacre petit polisson de Napoleon!_ have I found thee at last? Now then, sir--two tight double knots each way with your honorable permission, and the money’s safe. Feel it! feel it, fortunate sir! hard and round as a cannon-ball--_Ah, bah!_ if they had only fired such cannon-balls at us at Austerlitz--_nom d’une pipe!_ if they only had! And now, as an ancient grenadier, as an ex-brave of the French army, what remains for me to do? I ask what? Simply this: to entreat my valued English friend to drink a bottle of Champagne with me, and toast the goddess Fortune in foaming goblets before we part!” Excellent ex-brave! Convivial ancient grenadier! Champagne by all means! An English cheer for an old soldier! Hurrah! hurrah! Another English cheer for the goddess Fortune! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! “Bravo! the Englishman; the amiable, gracious Englishman, in whose veins circulates the vivacious blood of France! Another glass? _Ah, bah!_--the bottle is empty! Never mind! _Vive le vin!_ I, the old soldier, order another bottle, and half a pound of bonbons with it!” “No, no, ex-brave; never--ancient grenadier! _Your_ bottle last time; _my_ bottle this. Behold it! Toast away! The French Army! the great Napoleon! the present company! the croupier! the honest croupier’s wife and daughters--if he has any! the Ladies generally! everybody in the world!” By the time the second bottle of Champagne was emptied, I felt as if I had been drinking liquid fire--my brain seemed all aflame. No excess in wine had ever had this effect on me before in my life. Was it the result of a stimulant acting upon my system when I was in a highly excited state? Was my stomach in a particularly disordered condition? Or was the Champagne amazingly strong? “Ex-brave of the French Army!” cried I, in a mad state of exhilaration, “_I_ am on fire! how are _you?_ You have set me on fire! Do you hear, my hero of Austerlitz? Let us have a third bottle of Champagne to put the flame out!” The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until I expected to see them slip out of their sockets; placed his dirty forefinger by the side of his broken nose; solemnly ejaculated “Coffee!” and immediately ran off into an inner room.