before them all and the gay archer, she was betrayed to her final
undoing by her goat, whom she had so imprudently taught how to spell
the beloved name of "Phebus."

Close by was the Morgue, that grewsome building which the great etcher
Meryon has managed to invest with some weird fascination akin to that it
had for me in those days--and has now, as I see it with the charmed
eyes of Memory.

La Morgue! what a fatal twang there is about the very name!

[Illustration: SETTLING AN OLD SCORE.]

After gazing one's fill at the horrors within (as became a
healthy-minded English boy) it was but a step to the equestrian statue
of Henri Quatre, on the Pont-Neuf (the oldest bridge in Paris, by the
way); there, astride his long-tailed charger, he smiled, _le roy vert et
galant,_ just midway between either bank of the historic river, just
where it was most historic; and turned his back on the Paris of the
Bourgeois King with the pear-shaped face and the mutton-chop whiskers.

And there one stood, spellbound in indecision, like the ass of Buridan
between two sacks of oats; for on either side, north or south of the
Pont-Neuf, were to be found enchanting slums, all more attractive the
ones than the others, winding up and down hill and roundabout and in and
out, like haunting illustrations by Gustave Dore to _Drolatick Tales_ by
Balzac (not seen or read by me till many years later, I beg to say).

Dark, narrow, silent, deserted streets that would turn up afterwards in
many a nightmare--with the gutter in the middle and towerlets and stone