"Why do so many of your good republicans dress so that the rue de Clery don't know them, and then go to the chateau?" demanded the commissionaire, very innocently, as to appearance at least. {chateau = palace} "Bah! there are the five napoleons--if you want them, take them--if not, I care little about it, my invoice being all closed." Desiree never accepted money more reluctantly. Instead of making one hundred and fifty-five francs out of the toil and privations, and self-denial of poor Adrienne, she found her own advantages unexpectedly lessened to fifty-five; or, only a trifle more than one hundred per cent. But the colonel was firm, and, for once, her cupidity was compelled to succumb. The money was paid, and I became the vassal of Colonel Silky; a titular soldier, but a traveling trader, who never lost sight of the main chance either in his campaigns, his journeys, or his pleasures. To own the truth, Colonel Silky was delighted with me. No girl could be a better judge of the ARTICLE, and all his cultivated taste ran into the admiration of GOODS. I was examined with the closest scrutiny; my merits were inwardly applauded, and my demerits pronounced to be absolutely none. In short, I was flattered; for, it must be confessed, the commendation of even a fool is grateful. So far from placing me in a trunk, or a drawer, the colonel actually put me in his pocket, though duly enveloped and with great care, and for some time I trembled in every delicate fibre, lest, in a moment of forgetfulness, he might use me. But my new master had no such intention. His object in taking me out was to consult a sort of court commissionaire, with whom he had established certain relations, and that, too, at some little cost, on the propriety of using me himself that evening at the chateau of the King of the French. Fortunately, his monitress, though by no means of the purest water, knew better than to suffer her eleve to commit so gross a blunder, and I escaped the calamity of making my first appearance at court under the auspices of such a patron. {eleve = pupil}