"Old clo'! old clo'!"

I gazed at the disappearing figure, in speechless amazement, and was
still looking, when I was tapped upon the shoulder, and, turning
round, saw a German cavalry officer, with a heavy moustache, and a
dog-whistle in his hand.

"Most extraordinary man, your friend yonder," said the officer; "I
don't remember to have seen him in Turkey, and yet I recognize upon
his feet the boots that I wore in the great Russian cavalry charge,
where I individually rode down five hundred and thirty Turks, slew
seven hundred, at a moderate computation, by the mere force of my
rush, and, taking the seven insurmountable walls of Constantinople at
one clean flying leap, rode straight into the seraglio, and, dropping
the bridle, cut the sultan's throat with my bridle-hand, kissed the
other to the ladies of the hareem, and was back again within our lines
and taking a glass of wine with the hereditary Grand Duke
Generalissimo before he knew that I had mounted. Oddly enough, your
old friend is now sporting the identical boots I wore on that
occasion."

The cavalry officer coolly curled his moustache with his fingers. I
looked at him in silence.

"Speaking of boots," he resumed, "I don't remember to have told you of
that little incident of the Princess of the Crimea's diamonds. It was
slight, but curious. I was dining one day with the Emperor of the
Crimea, who always had a cover laid for me at his table, when he said,
in great perplexity, 'Baron, my boy, I am in straits. The Shah of