No sooner said than done. With the boldness of despair he attacked the savoury pie, with no thought of stopping, so that in less than five minutes it was half gone, and the cause of the gentlemen who had ordered it was sadly in want of support. Meat, mushrooms, balls, crust, and top he swallowed without distinction, only anxious to bag it all before a cruel destiny should overtake him. He drank his wine in a hearty draught, and put enormous bits of bread into his mouth; in short, it was a lively innings, as when before a storm the hay from the near meadow is cast into the barn with a pitch-fork. Again the host ran to the kitchen and cried: “Look, he is eating up the pie, while he scarcely touched the roast! And the Bordeaux he drinks by glassfuls!” “Let him,” said the cook. “He knows a partridge when he sees it! If he were a common fellow, he would have gorged on the roast!” “That’s what I say,” remarked the host; “it doesn’t look very genteel; but I have often seen generals and the high clergy eat so!” Meanwhile the coachman had had his horses fed, had eaten a substantial meal himself in the servants’ room, and as he was in haste, he had ordered his horses to be harnessed again. The menials could not resist asking him, before it was too late, who his master was and what was his name. The coachman, a jolly and sly fellow, said, “Has he not told you himself?” “No,” they said; and he replied, “It is no wonder. He doesn’t have much to say from morning till night. Well, he is Count Strapinsky! He is going to stay here all day,--perhaps longer, for he told me to take the carriage home.” He perpetrated this vicious joke to take revenge on the tailor, who had, as he thought, without giving him a word of thanks for his kindness, gone into the hotel to play the false _rôle_ of a gentleman. Carrying his waggishness still further, he got up on his box without so much as asking what there was to pay for himself and his horses, cracked his whip, and drove out of town, no one interfering, for it was all put down on the bill of our friend the tailor. _Gottfried Keller_ (1815-1887). _A DISREPUTABLE SAINT._ ABOUT the beginning of the eighth century there lived at Alexandria an eccentric monk called Vitalis, who had set himself the special task of luring away the lost souls of women from the path of sin, and restoring them to virtue. But his methods were so singular, and the infatuation with which he untiringly followed his aim was mixed with such remarkable self-renunciation and hypocrisy, that the world has scarcely seen his like again. In his cap he carried about with him a small silver case containing a parchment scroll with the names of those to be converted. This he took out again and again to add some new-discovered suspicious name to the list, or to count over those he already had, and to decide which one of their owners should be the next to be regenerated.