Alas! scents cannot be revived at will, like an

"_Air doux et tendre
Jadis aime_!"

Oh, that I could hum or whistle an old French smell! I could evoke all
Paris, sweet, prae-imperial Paris, in a single whiff!

* * * * *

In such fashion did we three small boys, like the three musketeers (the
fame of whose exploits was then filling all France), gather and pile up
sweet memories, to chew the cud thereof in after years, when far away
and apart.

Of all that _bande joyeuse_--old and young and middle-aged, from M. le
Major to Mimsey Seraskier--all are now dead but me--all except dear
Madge, who was so pretty and light-hearted; and I have never seen
her since.

* * * * *

Thus have I tried, with as much haste as I could command (being one of
the plodding sort) to sketch that happy time, which came to an end
suddenly and most tragically when I was twelve years old.

My dear and jovial happy-go-lucky father was killed in a minute by the
explosion of a safety lamp of his own invention, which was to have
superseded Sir Humphry Davy's, and made our fortune! What a brutal
irony of fate.