"What, Oscar Dalrymple!" exclaimed a voice close beside us. "I should as soon have expected to meet the great Panjandrum himself!" "--With the little round button at top," added my companion, tossing away the end of his cigar, and shaking hands heartily with the new-comer. "By Jove, Frank, I'm glad to see you! What brings you here?" "Business--confound it! And not pleasant business either. _A procés_ which my father has instituted against a great manufacturing firm here at Rouen, and of which I have to bear the brunt. And you?" "And I, my dear fellow? Pshaw! what should I be but an idler in search of amusement?" "Is it true that you have sold out of the Enniskillens?" "Unquestionably. Liberty is sweet; and who cares to carry a sword in time of peace? Not I, at all events." While this brief greeting was going forward, I hung somewhat in the rear, and amused myself by comparing the speakers. The new-comer was rather below than above the middle height, fair-haired and boyish, with a smile full of mirth and an eye full of mischief. He looked about two years my senior. The other was much older--two or three and thirty, at the least--dark, tall, powerful, finely built; his wavy hair clipped close about his sun-burnt neck; a thick moustache of unusual length; and a chest that looked as if it would have withstood the shock of a battering-ram. Without being at all handsome, there was a look of brightness, and boldness, and gallantry about him that arrested one's attention at first sight. I think I should have taken him for a soldier, had I not already gathered it from the last words of their conversation. "Who is your friend?" I heard the new-comer whisper. To which the other replied:--"Haven't the ghost of an idea." Presently he took out his pocket-book, and handing me a card, said:-- "We are under the mutual disadvantage of all chance acquaintances. My name is Dalrymple--Oscar Dalrymple, late of the Enniskillen Dragoons. My friend here is unknown to fame as Mr. Frank Sullivan; a young gentleman who has the good fortune to be younger partner in a firm of merchant princes, and the bad taste to dislike his occupation." How I blushed as I took Captain Dalrymple's card, and stammered out my own name in return! I had never possessed a card in my life, nor needed one, till this moment. I rather think that Captain Dalrymple guessed these facts, for he shook hands with me at once, and put an end to my embarrassment by proposing that we should take a boat, and pull a mile or two up the river. The thing was no sooner said than done. There were plenty of boats below the iron bridge; so we chose one of the cleanest, and jumped into it without any kind of reference to the owner, whoever he might be. "_Batelier, Messieurs? Batelier_?" cried a dozen men at once, rushing down to the water's edge. But Dalrymple had already thrown off his coat, and seized the oars.