There are odd customers in Kingsgate Street, Holborn—foreign gents and refugees. Such a cove my eagle eye detected in a man who entered the shop wearing a long black beard streaked with the snows of age, and who requested Poll to shave him clean. He was a sailor-man to look at; but his profile, David, might have been carved by a Grecian chisel out of an iceberg, and that steel grey eye of his might have struck a chill, even through a chink, into any heart less stout than beats behind the vest of Montague Tigg. The task of rasping so hirsute a customer seemed to sit heavy on the soul of Poll, and threatened to exhaust the resources of his limited establishment. The barber went forth to command, as I presume, a fresher strop, or more keenly tempered steel, and glittering cans of water heated to a fiercer heat. No sooner was the coast clear than the street-door opened, and my stranger was joined by a mantled form, that glided into Poll’s emporium. The new-comer doffed a swart sombrero, and disclosed historic features that were not unknown to the concealed observer—meaning me. Yes, David, that aquiline beak, that long and waxed moustache, that impassible mask of a face, I had seen them, Sir, conspicuous (though their owner be of alien and even hostile birth) among England’s special chivalry. The foremost he had charged on the Ides of April (I mean against the ungentlemanly Chartist throng) and in the storied lists of Eglinton. The new-comer, in short, was the nephew of him who ate his heart out in an English gaol (like our illustrious Chiv)—in fact, he was Prince Louis N— B—. Gliding to the seat where, half-lathered, the more or less ancient Mariner awaited Poll’s return, the Prince muttered (in the French lingo, familiar to me from long exile in Boulogne): “Hist, goes all well?” “Magnificently, Sire!” says the other chap. “Our passages taken?” “Ay, and private cabins paid for to boot, in case of the storm’s inclemency.” The Prince nodded and seemed pleased; then he asked anxiously, “The Bird? You have been to Jamrach’s?” “Pardon me, Sire,” says the man who was waiting to be shaved, “I can slip from your jesses no mercenary eagle. These limbs have yet the pith to climb and this heart the daring to venture to the airiest crag of Monte d’Oro, and I have ravished from his eyrie a true Corsican eagle to be the omen of our expedition. Wherever this eagle is your uncle’s legions will gather together.” “’Tis well; and the gold?” “_Trust Monte Cristo_!” says the bearded man; and then, David, begad! I knew I had them! “We meet?” “At Folkestone pier, 7.45, tidal train.” “I shall be there without fail,” says the Prince, and sneaks out of the street-door just as Poll comes in with the extra soap and strop.