Part 25 (1/2)

”Oh, well,” says The Frenchri for a bottle of wine coether they went back to the ice box

It was literally filled with diaone for sure

”La!” says The Major with triu the mass of shells with his cane as he held the candle aloft

”But,” saysa last chance, ”you toldthe cancan!”

The Major picked up a terrapin and turned it over in his hand Quite nun Then he stirred the shells about in the box with his cane Still not a show of life Of a sudden he stopped, reflected a moment, then looked at his watch

”Ah,” he et The terrapin, they are asleep It is ten-thirty, and the terrapin he regularly go to sleep at ten o'clock by the watch every night” And without another word he reached for the Veuve Cliquot!

For all his volubility inreticent about his iends referred to the distant of tinity could not be denied him, and, on occasion, a proper reserve; he rarely h he worked like a slave, and could not have beenmuch or any profit--so that there rose the query how he contrived to e that there was a money supply from somewhere; finally, it matters not how, that he had an annuity of forty thousand francs, paid in quarterly installments of ten thousand francs each

Occasionally hethe faht, and only in the very fastnesses of the wine cellar, as it were, at the e he spoke of ”l'Oncle Celestin,” with the deepest feeling

”Did you ever hear The Frenchman tell that story about Sophonisba?”

Doctor Stoic, whom on account of his affectation of insensibility ont to call Old Adaht he told it to me, and he was drunk, and he cried, sir; and I was drunk, and I cried too!”

I had known The Frenchman now ten or a dozen years That he came from Marseilles, that he had served on the Confederate side in the Trans-Mississippi, that he possessed an annuity, that he must have been well-born and reared, that he was sis scrupulously honest--was all I could be sure of What had he done to be ashamed about or wish to conceal? In as he a black sheep, for that he had been one seemed certain? Had the beautiful woman, his wife--a tireless church and charity worker, who lived the life of a recluse and a saint--had she reclaimed him from his former self? I knew that she had been the i over a new leaf

But before her tiht, when the rain was falling and the streets were empty, I entered The Brunswick It was e room The Major, his face buried in his hands, laid upon the table in front of hi He did not observe my entrance and I seated myself on the opposite side of the table

Presently he looked up, and seeing me, without a word passed ht him to this distressful state It was a for list of fa the rest--the envelope, addressed in a lady's hand--his sister's, the wife of a nobleh military command--the postmark ”Lyon” Uncle Celestin was dead

Thereafter The Frenchman told me much which I may not recall and must not repeat; for, included in that funeral list were some of the best names in France, Uncle Celestin himself not the least of them

At last he died, and as mysteriously as he had come his body was taken away, nobody knehen, nobody where, and with it went the beautiful woman, his wife, of whom from that day to this I have never heard a word

Chapter the Fifteenth

Still the Gay Capital of France--Its Environs--Walewska and De Morny--Thackeray in Paris--A _Pension_ Adventure

I

Each of the generations thinks itself commonplace Fae of the world has witnessed so much of the drae we live in The years betwixt Agincourt and Waterloo were not ic than the years between Serajevo and Senlis

The gay capital of France ree and retains the interest of the onlooking universe All roads lead to Paris as all roads led to Rome In dickens' day ”a tale of two cities” could only ht to date the title would have now to read ”three,” or even ”four,” cities, New York and Chicago putting in their clainition