mentioning, and that the blood, which I washed off in his presence, was his own. The next consideration was--what was to be done? To stay where we were was out of the question; no sort of public conveyance would pass that way _en route_ to Paris until the second morning at the same hour. My companion's wound required dressing, and I wanted my breakfast, for the sharp air of the morning had so quickened my appetite, that the thoughts of my disaster were fast fading away before the vision of _café au lait_ and a _biftek_. The realization of this pleasing prospect became the more probable when I learnt that we were not more than a short league from the town of Moulins, whither I instantly dispatched my trusty _paysan_, whose faculties and movements were much quickened by the promise of a five-franc piece when he returned with some sort of vehicle to convey us into the town. During his absence, which lasted two mortal hours, I had abundant time to consider and contemplate the person and demeanor of the individuals whom chance had thus thrown in my way, and, as it were, upon my charity. The former still exhibited sufficient traces of manly beauty to show that, in his youth, he had been strikingly handsome, whilst the latter spoke the accomplished and high-bred gentleman in the truest and least hackneyed acceptation of the word. Being now perfectly himself again, he listened with much interest to such account of our accident as I was able to give, and, ascertaining from his bandaged head and shoulder the nature and extent of my services to him, his gratitude was expressed in the warmest terms. "I am the last of an ancient house," said he, "and but for you should have died on the road like a dog. I am the Marquis de Marigny, pray tell me to whom I am under so much obligation." "Why, sir," said I, "my name is D----, by profession a physician, and, at a pinch, a tolerable surgeon, and I never so congratulated myself on my slender knowledge of this branch of the healing art as on the present occasion." Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the _paysan_ with a sort of rickety cabriolet, drawn by so small a horse, decorated with so large a collar, and covered with such a profusion of trappings, that, until he drew up beside us, and I could clearly distinguish the animal's four legs, I was not quite sure that the vehicle did not progress by some locomotive power of its own.