And without giving me time to protest my utter indifference to the supercilious criticism referred to, he turned into a doorway, upon a pane of glass above which was painted a ship in full sail, with the words “Café Estaminet Hollandais.” Ascending a flight or two of stairs, we entered a suite of spacious apartments, furnished with several billiard tables, with cue-racks, chairs, benches, and small tables for the use of drinkers. Several of the windows, which looked out upon the garden of the Palais Royal, were open, in the vain hope, perhaps, of purifying the place from the inveterate odour of tobacco remaining there from the previous night. Although it was not yet noon, the billiard balls rattled vigorously upon more than one of the tables, and a few early drinkers, chiefly foreigners, professional billiard players and non-commissioned officers of the Paris garrison, sipped their Strasburg beer or morning dram of brandy. The further end of the long gallery, however, was unoccupied, and there Oakley drew a couple of chairs to a window, called for refreshment as a pretext for our presence, and seating himself opposite to me, assailed me with a volley of questions concerning persons and things in England. To these I replied as satisfactorily as I was able, and allowed the stream of interrogation to run itself dry, before assuming, in my turn, the character of questioner. At last, having in some degree appeased Oakley’s eager desire for information about the country whence he had been so long absent, I intimated a curiosity concerning his own adventures, and the circumstances that had made a soldier of him. He at once took the hint, and, perceiving that I listened with friendly attention and interest, gave me a detailed narrative of his life since I had first made his acquaintance. He told his story with a spirit and military conciseness that riveted my attention as much as the real pungency of the incidents. Its first portion, relating to his London career, informed me of little beyond what I already knew, or, at least, had conjectured. It was the every-day tale of a heedless, inexperienced youth, suddenly cast without guide or Mentor upon the ocean of life, and striking in turn against all the shoals that strew the perilous waters. He had been bubbled by gentlemanly swindlers—none of your low, seedy rapscallions, but men of style and fashion, even of family, but especially of _honour_, who would have paraded and shot him, had he presumed to doubt their word, but made no scruple of genteelly picking his pocket. He had been duped by designing women, spunged upon by false friends, pillaged by unprincipled tradesmen. He never thought of making a calculation—except on a horse-race, and then he was generally wrong,—or of looking at an account, or keeping one; but, when he wanted money, and his banker wrote him word he had overdrawn, he just sent his autograph to his stockbroker, prefixing the words, “Sell five hundred, or a thousand,” as