Diou-djen-dji. She is a very pretty girl of about fifteen. She can
probably be engaged for about eighteen or twenty dollars a month, on
condition of presenting her with a few dresses of the best fashion,
and of lodging her in a pleasant and well-situated house,--all of
which a man of gallantry like myself could not fail to do.

Well, let us fix upon Mdlle. Jasmin then,--and now we must part; time
presses. M. Kangourou will come on board to-morrow to communicate to
me the result of his first proceedings and to arrange with me for the
interview. For the present he refuses to accept any remuneration; but
I am to give him my washing, and to procure him the custom of my
brother officers of the _Triomphante_. It is all settled. Profound
bows,--they put on my boots again at the door. My djin, profiting by
the interpreter kind fortune has placed in his way, begs to be
recommended to me for future custom; his stand is on the quay; his
number is 415, inscribed in French characters on the lantern of his
vehicle (we have a number 415 on board, one Le Goëlec, gunner, who
serves the left of one of my guns; happy thought, I shall remember
this); his price is sixpence the journey, or five pence an hour, for
his customers. Capital; he shall have my custom, that is promised. And
now, let us be off. The waiting-maids, who have escorted me to the
door, fall on all fours as a final salute, and remain prostrate on the
threshold--as long as I am still in sight down the dark pathway, where
the rain trickles off the great over-arching bracken upon my head.


IV.

Three days have passed. Night is closing, in an apartment which has
been mine since yesterday. Yves and I, on the first floor, move