words:

"Of a truth! it is only in France that such things can happen;
France is the most curious country in the world. I am delighted,
gentlemen, to travel in France and become acquainted with Frenchmen."

The last sentence was said with such courtesy that nothing remained
save to thank the speaker from whose serious mouth it issued,
though he was a descendant of the conquerors of Crecy, Poitiers
and Agincourt. It was the younger of the two travellers who
acknowledged this politeness in that heedless and rather caustic
manner which seemed habitual to him.

"'Pon my word! I am exactly like you, my lord--I say my lord,
because I presume you are English."

"Yes, sir," replied the gentleman, "I have that honor."

"Well! as I was saying," continued the young man, "I am delighted
to travel in France and see what I am seeing. One must live under
the government of citizens Gohier, Moulins, Roger Ducos, Sieyes
and Barras to witness such roguery. I dare wager than when the
tale is told, fifty years hence, of the highwayman who rode into
a city of thirty thousand inhabitants in broad day, masked and
armed with two pistols and a sword at his belt, to return the
two hundred louis which he had stolen the day previous to the
honest merchant who was then deploring their loss, and when it
is added that this occurred at a table d'hote where twenty or
twenty-five people were seated, and that this model bandit was
allowed to depart without one of those twenty or twenty-five