The elder man's strong, rather under-sized figure showed very clearly in the moonlight. He had thick, almost shaggy hair, of an indefinable dark brownish color--hair that was not curly, that was not straight, that did not stand up, and yet could evidently never be kept down. He had a rough complexioned face, with heavy eyebrows and stubby British whiskers. His hands were large and reddish-brown and coarse. He was dressed carelessly--that is, his clothes were evidently garments that had cost money, but he did not seem to care how he wore them. Any garment must fall readily into shapelessness and give up trying to fit well on that unheeding figure. The Briton did not seem exactly what one would at once assume to be a gentleman. Yet he was not vulgar, and he was evidently quite at his ease with himself. He looked somehow like a man who had money or power of some kind, and who did not care whether people knew it or did not know it. Our younger Briton had at the first glance taken him for the ordinary English father of a family, travelling with his womankind. But he had not seen him for two minutes at the breakfast table before he observed that the supposed heavy father was never in a fuss, had a way of having all his orders obeyed without trouble or misunderstanding, and for all his strong British accent talked French with entire ease and a sort of resolute grammatical accuracy. "Staying in Paris?" the elder man said--he too was smoking--when the younger had replied to his salutation. "No; I am going home--I mean I am going to England--to-morrow." "Ay, ay? I almost wish I were too. I'm taking my wife and daughters for a holiday. I don't much care for holidays myself. I hadn't time for enjoyment of such things when I could enjoy them, and of course when you get out of the way of enjoying yourself you never get into it again; it's a sort of groove, I suppose. Anyhow, we don't ever enjoy much, our people. You are English, I suppose?" "Yes, I am English." "Wish you weren't? I see." Indeed, the tone in which the young man answered the question seemed to warrant this interpretation. "Excuse me; I didn't say that," the young man said, a little sharply. "No, no; I only thought you meant it. We are not bound, you know, to keep rattling up the Rule Britannia always among ourselves." "I can assure you I am not at all inclined to rattle the Rule Britannia too loudly," the young man said, tossing the end of his cigar away and looking determinedly into the street with his hands dug deeply into his pockets. The elder man smoked for a few seconds in silence, and looked up and down the long straight line of street. "Odd," he said abruptly. "I always think of Balzac when I look into the streets of Paris, and when I give myself time to think. Balzac sums up Paris to me."