‘They were, indeed, a very singular class of restoratives which my kind friends thought proper to administer to me; nor am I quite sure that a _bavaroise_ of chocolate dashed with rum, and friction over the face with hot Eau de Cologne are sufficiently appreciated by the “faculty”; but this I do know, that I felt very much revived by the application without and within; and with a face somewhat the colour of a copper preserving-pan, and far too hot to put anything on, I sat up and looked about me. A merrier set of gentlemen not even my experience had ever beheld. They were mostly middle-aged, grizzly-looking fellows, with very profuse beards and moustaches; their conversation was partly French, partly German, while here and there a stray Italian diminutive crept in; and to season the whole, like cayenne in a ragoût, there was an odd curse in English. Their strange dress, their free-and-easy manner, their intimacy with one another, and, above all, the _locale_ they had chosen for their festivities, made me, I own, a little suspicious about their spotless morality, and I began conjecturing to what possible calling they might belong--now guessing them smugglers, now police of some kind or other, now highwaymen outright, but without ever being able to come to any conclusion that even approached satisfaction. The more I listened, the more did my puzzle grow on me. That they were either the most distinguished and exalted individuals or the most confounded story- tellers was certain. Here was a fat, greasy little fellow, with a beard like an Armenian, who was talking of a trip he made to Greece with the Duke of Saxe-Weimar; apparently they were on the best of terms together, and had a most jolly time of it. There was a large handsome man, with a short black moustache, describing a night attack made by wolves on the caravan he was in, during a journey to Siberia. I listened with intense interest to his narrative; the scenery, the danger, the preparation for defence, had all those little traits that bespeak truth, when, confound him! he destroyed the whole as he said, “At that moment the Archduke Nicholas said to _me_----” The Archduke Nicholas, indeed! very good that! he’s just as great a liar as the other. ‘“Come,” thought I, “there’s a respectable-looking old fellow with a bald head--let us hear him; there’s no boasting of the great people he ever met with from that one, I’m sure.”