"Monsieur Barbarin -- "

"Tartarin!" prompted the other, timidly.

"Tartarin, Barbarin, no matter! Between us henceforward it is a
league of life and death!"

The Montenegrin noble shook his hand with fierce energy. You
may infer that the Tarasconian was proud.

"Prince, prince!" he repeated enthusiastically.

In a quarter of an hour subsequently the two gentlemen were
installed in the Platanes Restaurant, an agreeable late supper-house,
with terraces running out over the sea, where, before a hearty
Russian salad, seconded by a nice Crescia wine, they renewed the
friendship.

You cannot image any one more bewitching than this Montenegrin
prince. Slender, fine, with crisp hair curled by the tongs, shaved "a
week under" and pumice-stoned on that, bestarred with out-of-the-
way decorations, he had the wily eye, the fondling gestures, and
vaguely the accent of an Italian, which gave him an air of Cardinal
Mazarin without his chin-tuft and moustaches. He was deeply
versed in the Latin tongues, and lugged in quotations from Tacitus,
Horace, and Caesar's Commentaries at every opening.

Of an old noble strain, it appeared that his brothers had had him
exiled at the age of ten, on account of his liberal opinions, since
which time he had roamed the world for pleasure and instruction as