"He didn't lose them at all, sir," replied Darby, "only the sight o' _one_ o' them, (for he never had th' other,) an' that was all through Molly, _the Lump_, that advised him, (bad win' to her!) to use cr_a_me when he had a could upon his intellects after the _typus_; so he mistuk a pot o' white lead for the same, one evenin' that he had a drop too much, and fairly painted himself blind; for from that hour to this he can't see a hole in a forty-fut laddher. And more's the pity, for he had plenty o' _drawin'_ about the counthry to do; an' now his dog has got into the _line_ ov it for him, the crathur! Well, anyhow, knowin' he was a jidge o' colours, I ax'd him to feel my face, an' tell me what was the matther width it; so he puts his hand upon me, an' may I never die, masther, if it didn't turn as black as a crow as soon as he drew it acrass my cheek! 'Well,' says I, 'this b_a_tes cock-fightin'!' But I soon found out the trick they played me; for M'Diarmot, when he smelt his hand, said there was s_u_t and goose-gr_a_se upon it. So ye see, yir honor, the truth was, they blackened my face in the kitchen afore they put me to sleep with the black, that I mightn't know which was myself in the mornin'. May they live till the ind o' the world, that the divil may have a race after them, say I, for that same!" THE DUEL. I was educated, said a French gentleman whom I met in quarantine, at Poitiers, though Lusignan is my native town. Poitiers is well known to the antiquary as having possessed a Roman amphitheatre, of which, however, when I was at that university, only a vault, supposed to have been a cage for the wild beasts, remained. This cage, from the solidity of the masonry, and the enormous size of the blocks, seemed indestructible, but was not so; for when I last visited Poitiers, and asked for the key of the cavern, I found that it no longer existed, and that on the site had been constructed the inn of the "Trois Pelerins." It is a stone's throw from the Salle d'Armes, a place with which I had been better acquainted than with the schools. To revive my ancient recollection, I entered the _salle_, and found there an inhabitant of the town whom I had known at college. He proposed that we should dine together at the "Trois Pelerins;" and, after drinking as good a bottle of wine as it afforded, he related to me what a few days before, in the very room where we were sitting, had happened at a dinner of the collegians. It was ordered for twelve; but, one of the party having invited a friend, the number swelled to thirteen. It is said that superstition supplies the place of religion; I have observed this to be the case with the most sceptical of my acquaintance: and thus this number thirteen occasioned some remarks, and the stranger was looked upon with no very favourable eye, and considered as a supernumerary, who brought with him ill luck. One of the set at last summoned resolution enough to say, "I do not dine thirteen."