poor old mother dressed in silks and velvets--not in rags; she ate and
drank delicately, not sour crusts and sourer wine; she slept on down and
not in a cellar!"

Von Sendlingen shook his head; he was of the new generation and he
preserved but a dim remembrance of the noted beauties--the stars of the
living galaxy decorating the first cycle of the Bonapartist Restoration.

"I foresaw it all and I warned her; but she was so perverse! It is my
duty to avenge her, and to see that the same blunder is not made by--no
matter! Enough that my science--at which you smile, I see--points out to
me that your greatest enemies and mine are in that house." She gestured
toward the hotel, which the major had been studying.

"Do you say enemies in the plural?" he said, ceasing to curl his lip in
mocking of the witch.

"In that house are the Jewish couple, father and daughter, who played at
the Harmonista, La Belle Stamboulane and the Turkophonist Daniel, and
the young man who belabored your excellency so that he almost died of
the drubbing."

"Hang you for being so profuse in your explanations! How do you know all
this?"

"The servant-maid is a customer of mine. I tell her fortune and she
tells me all that goes on in her master's house. The young man has been
cared for there these five or six days, and they only await the chance
to smuggle him out of the city. Have him seized and secure him in
prison, where he shall rot--for I declare to you, as surely as there are