PISISTRATUS.--It is in you: a man who can walk from Paris to Boulogne with twelve sous in his pocket, and save four for a purpose--who can stake those four on the cool confidence in his own skill, even at billiards--who can subsist for three days on three rolls--and who, on the fourth day, can wake from the stones of a capital with an eye and a spirit as proud as yours, has in him all the requisites to subdue fortune. STRANGER.--Do you work?--you? PISISTRATUS.--Yes--and hard. STRANGER.--I am ready to work, then. PISISTRATUS.--Good. Now, what can you do? STRANGER (_with his odd smile_.)--Many things useful. I can split a bullet on a penknife: I know the secret tierce of Coulon, the fencing-master: I can speak two languages (besides English) like a native, even to their slang: I know every game in the cards: I can act comedy, tragedy, farce: I can drink down Bacchus himself: I can make any woman I please in love with me--that is, any woman good-for-nothing. Can I earn a handsome livelihood out of all this--wear kid gloves, and set up a cabriolet?--you see my wishes are modest! PISISTRATUS.--You speak two languages, you say, like a native,--French, I suppose, is one of them? STRANGER.--Yes. PISISTRATUS.--Will you teach it? STRANGER (_haughtily_.)--No. _Je suis gentilhomme_, which means more or less than a gentleman. _Gentilhomme_ means well born, because free born,--teachers are slaves! PISISTRATUS (_unconsciously imitating Mr Trevanion_.)--Stuff! STRANGER (_looks angry, and then laughs_.)--Very true; stilts don't suit shoes like these! But I cannot teach: heaven help those I should teach!--Anything else? PISISTRATUS.--Anything else!--you leave me a wide margin. You know French thoroughly;--to write as well as speak?--that is much. Give me some address where I can find you,--or will you call on me? STRANGER.--No! Any evening at dusk I will meet you. I have no address to give; and I cannot show these rags at another man's door. PISISTRATUS.--At nine in the evening, then, and here in the Strand, on Thursday next. I may then have found something that will suit you. Meanwhile--(_slides his purse into the Stranger's hand_. N.B.--_Purse not very full._) STRANGER, with the air of one conferring a favour, pockets the purse; and there is something so striking in the very absence of all emotion at so accidental a rescue from starvation, that PISISTRATUS exclaims,-- "I don't know why I should have taken this fancy to you, Mr Dare-devil, if that be the name that please you best. The wood you are made of seems cross-grained, and full of knots; and yet, in the hands of a skilful carver, I think it would be worth much." STRANGER (_startled_.)--Do you? do you? None, I believe, ever thought that before. But the same wood, I suppose, that makes the gibbet could make the mast of a man-of-war. I tell you, however, why you have taken this fancy to me,--the strong sympathise with the strong. You, too, could subdue fortune!