Spanish service, under Colonel Crofton;" and with this, the talk
ended for the night.

After three months' work Desmond was dismissed from drill, and had
obtained such a proficiency with the rapier that he felt that he
could now relax his work, and see something of the city, which he
had been hitherto too busy to explore. He had seen the principal
streets, in the company of his comrades, had admired the mansions
of the nobles, the richness of the goods exposed to view in the
windows, and the gaiety and magnificence of the dresses of the
upper class. His friends had warned him that, if he intended to go
farther, he should never do so alone, but should take with him his
soldier servant, a trooper named Mike Callaghan.

Mike was some twenty-eight years old, strong and bony; his hair
was red, and the natural colour of his face was obscured by a host
of freckles; his eyes were blue, and his nose had an upward turn;
his expression was merry and good humoured, but there was a
twinkle about his eyes that seemed to show that he was by no means
wanting in shrewdness.

"Even in the daytime," O'Neil said, "it is not safe for a man, if
well dressed and likely to carry money in his pocket, to go into
some quarters of the town. Paris has always been a turbulent city,
and, while it is the abode of the richest and noblest of
Frenchmen, it is also the resort of the rascaldom of all France.
Some streets are such that even the city guard would not venture
to search for an ill doer, unless in considerable force and
prepared for battle. There are, of course, many streets, both on
this and the other side of the river, where life and property are