me as a boy the "Challenge Shield" with coat of arms, which hung
outside his tent at the tournament, and that shield has always
accompanied me in my wanderings. It hangs within a few feet of me
as I write, as it hung forty-three years ago in my room in Berlin,
and later in Petrograd, Lisbon, and Buenos Ayres.

One of the great sights of Paris in the "sixties," whilst it was
still gas-lighted, was the "cordon de lumiere de la Rue de
Rivoli." As every one knows, the Rue de Rivoli is nearly two miles
long, and runs perfectly straight, being arcaded throughout its
length. In every arch of the arcades there hung then a gas lamp.
At night the continuous ribbon of flame from these lamps,
stretching in endless vista down the street, was a fascinatingly
beautiful sight. Every French provincial who visited Paris was
expected to admire the "cordon de lumiere de la Rue de Rivoli."
Now that electricity has replaced gas, I fancy that the lamps are
placed further apart, and so the effect of a continuous quivering
band of yellow flame is lost. Equally every French provincial had
to admire the "luxe de gaz" of the Place de la Concorde. It
certainly blazed with gas, but now with electric arc-lamps there
is double the light with less than a tenth of the number of old
flickering gas-lamps; another example of quality vs. quantity.

Most of my father and mother's French friends lived in the
Faubourg Saint Germain. Their houses, though no doubt very fine
for entertaining, were dark and gloomy in the daytime. Our little
friends of my own age seemed all to inhabit dim rooms looking into
courtyards, where, however, we were bidden to unbelievably
succulent repasts, very different to the plain fare to which we
were accustomed at home. Both my brother and myself were, I think,