"Be sure you ask for the great toe of St. Helena," said my right hand companion, proceeding imperturbably with his dinner. "The saint had but one leg at the period of her martyrdom, and that great toe is unique." "G--g--good gracious!" exclaimed the tourist, pulling out a gigantic note-book, and entering the fact upon the spot. "A saint with one leg--and a lady, too! Wouldn't m--m--miss that for the world!" I looked round, puzzled by the gravity of my new acquaintance. "Is this all true?" I whispered. "You told me the treasury was a humbug." "And so it is." "But the snuff-box of Clovis, and...." "Pure inventions! The man's a muff, and on muffs I have no mercy. Do you stay long in Rouen?" "No, I go on to Paris to-morrow. I wish I could remain longer." "I am not sure that you would gain more from a long visit than from a short one. Some places are like some women, charming, _en passant_, but intolerable upon close acquaintance. It is just so with Rouen. The place contains no fine galleries, and no places of public entertainment; and though exquisitely picturesque, is nothing more. One cannot always be looking at old houses, and admiring old churches. You will be delighted with Paris." "B--b--beautiful city," interposed the stammerer, eager to join our conversation, whenever he could catch a word of it. "I'm going to P--P--Paris myself." "Then, sir, I don't doubt you will do ample justice to its attractions," observed my right-hand neighbor. "From the size of your note-book, and the industry with which you accumulate useful information, I should presume that you are a conscientious observer of all that is recondite and curious." "I as--p--pire to be so," replied the other, with a blush and a bow. "I m--m--mean to exhaust P--P--Paris. I'm going to write a b--b--book about it, when I get home."' My friend to the right flashed one glance of silent scorn upon the future author, drained the last glass of his Bordeaux-Leoville, pushed his chair impatiently back, and said:--"This place smells like a kitchen. Will you come out, and have a cigar?" So we rose, took our hats, and in a few moments were strolling under the lindens on the Quai de Corneille. I, of course, had never smoked in my life; and, humiliating though it was, found myself obliged to decline a "prime Havana," proffered in the daintiest of embroidered cigar-cases. My companion looked as if he pitied me. "You'll soon learn," said he. "A man can't live in Paris without tobacco. Do you stay there many weeks?" "Two years, at least," I replied, registering an inward resolution to conquer the difficulties of tobacco without delay. "I am going to study medicine under an eminent French surgeon." "Indeed! Well, you could not go to a better school, or embrace a nobler profession. I used to think a soldier's life the grandest under heaven; but curing is a finer thing than killing, after all! What a delicious evening, is it not? If one were only in Paris, now, or Vienna,...."