first visit to Rouen, I suppose?" said he. "Beautiful old city, is it not? Garçon, a pint of Bordeaux-Leoville."
I modestly admitted that it was not only my first visit to Rouen, but my first to the Continent.
"Ah, you may go farther than Rouen, and fare worse," said he. "Do you sketch? No? That's a pity, for it's deliciously picturesque--though, for my own part, I am not enthusiastic about gutters and gables, and I object to a population composed exclusively of old women. I'm glad, by the way, that I preserved you from wasting your time among the atrocious lumber of that so-called treasury."
"The treasury!" exclaimed my slim neighbor with the blue glasses. "Beg your p--p--pardon, sir, but are you speaking of the Cathedral treasury? Is it worth v--v--visiting?"
"Singularly so," replied he to my right. "One of the rarest collections of authentic curiosities in France. They have the snuff-box of Clovis, the great toe of Saint Helena, and the tongs with which St. Dunstan took the devil by the nose."
"Up--p--pon my word, now, that's curious," ejaculated the thin tourist, who had an impediment in his speech. "I must p--p--put that down. Dear me! the snuff-box of King Clovis! I must see these relics to-morrow."
"Be sure you ask for the great toe of St. Helena," said my right hand companion, proceeding imperturbably with his dinner. "The saint had but one leg at the period of her martyrdom, and that great toe is unique."
"G--g--good gracious!" exclaimed the tourist, pulling out a gigantic note-book, and entering the fact upon the spot. "A saint with one leg--and a lady, too! Wouldn't m--m--miss that for the world!"
I looked round, puzzled by the gravity of my new acquaintance.
"Is this all true?" I whispered. "You told me the treasury was a humbug."
"And so it is."
"But the snuff-box of Clovis, and. … "
"Pure inventions! The man's a muff, and on muffs I have no mercy. Do you stay long in Rouen?"
"No, I go on to Paris to-morrow. I wish I could remain longer."
"I am not sure that you would gain more from a long visit than from a short one. Some places are like some women, charming, en passant, but intolerable upon close acquaintance. It is just so with Rouen. The place contains no fine galleries, and no places of public entertainment; and though exquisitely picturesque, is nothing more. One cannot always be looking at old houses, and admiring old churches. You will be delighted with Paris."
"B--b--beautiful city," interposed the stammerer, eager to join our conversation, whenever he could catch a word of it. "I'm going to P--P--Paris myself."
"Then, sir, I don't doubt you will do ample justice to its attractions," observed my right-hand neighbor. "From the size of your note-book, and the industry with which you accumulate useful information, I should presume that you are a conscientious observer of all that is recondite and curious."
"I as--p--pire to be so," replied the other, with a blush and a bow. "I m--m--mean to exhaust P--P--Paris. I'm going to write a b--b--book about it, when I get home."'
My friend to the right flashed one glance of silent scorn upon the future author, drained the last glass of his Bordeaux-Leoville, pushed his chair impatiently back, and said:--"This place smells like a kitchen. Will you come out, and have a cigar?"
So we rose, took our hats, and in a few moments were strolling under the lindens on the Quai de Corneille.
I, of course, had never smoked in my life; and, humiliating though it was, found myself obliged to decline a "prime Havana," proffered in the daintiest of embroidered cigar-cases. My companion looked as if he pitied me. "You'll soon learn," said he. "A man can't live in Paris without tobacco. Do you stay there many weeks?"
"Two years, at least," I replied, registering an inward resolution to conquer the difficulties of tobacco without delay. "I am going to study medicine under an eminent French surgeon."
"Indeed! Well, you could not go to a better school, or embrace a nobler profession. I used to think a soldier's life the grandest under heaven; but curing is a finer thing than killing, after all! What a delicious evening, is it not? If one were only in Paris, now, or Vienna, … "
"What, Oscar Dalrymple!" exclaimed a voice close beside us. "I should as soon have expected to meet the great Panjandrum himself!"
"--With the little round button at top," added my companion, tossing away the end of his cigar, and shaking hands heartily with the new-comer. "By Jove, Frank, I'm glad to see you! What brings you here?"
"Business--confound it! And not pleasant business either. A procés which my father has instituted against a great manufacturing firm here at Rouen, and of which I have to bear the brunt. And you?"
"And I, my dear fellow? Pshaw! what should I be but an idler in search of amusement?"
"Is it true that you have sold out of the Enniskillens?"
"Unquestionably. Liberty is sweet; and who cares to carry a sword in time of peace? Not I, at all events."
While this brief greeting was going forward, I hung somewhat in the rear, and amused myself by comparing the speakers. The new-comer was rather below than above the middle height, fair-haired and boyish, with a smile full of mirth and an eye full of mischief. He looked about two years my senior. The other was much older--two or three and thirty, at the least--dark, tall, powerful, finely built; his wavy hair clipped close about his sun-burnt neck; a thick moustache of unusual length; and a chest that looked as if it would have withstood the shock of a battering-ram. Without being at all handsome, there was a look of brightness, and boldness, and gallantry about him that arrested one's attention at first sight. I think I should have taken him for a soldier, had I not already gathered it from the last words of their conversation.
"Who is your friend?" I heard the new-comer whisper.
To which the other replied:--"Haven't the ghost of an idea."
Presently he took out his pocket-book, and handing me a card, said:--
"We are under the mutual disadvantage of all chance acquaintances. My name is Dalrymple--Oscar Dalrymple, late of the Enniskillen Dragoons. My friend here is unknown to fame as Mr. Frank Sullivan; a young gentleman who has the good fortune to be younger partner in a firm of merchant princes, and the bad taste to dislike his occupation."
How I blushed as I took Captain Dalrymple's card, and stammered out my own name in return! I had never possessed a card in my life, nor needed one, till this moment. I rather think that Captain Dalrymple guessed these facts, for he shook hands with me at once, and put an end to my embarrassment by proposing that we should take a boat, and pull a mile or two up the river. The thing was no sooner said than done. There were plenty of boats below the iron bridge; so we chose one of the cleanest, and jumped into it without any kind of reference to the owner, whoever he might be.
"Batelier, Messieurs? Batelier?" cried a dozen men at once, rushing down to the water's edge.
But Dalrymple had already thrown off his coat, and seized the oars.
"Batelier, indeed!" laughed he, as with two or three powerful strokes he carried us right into the middle, of the stream. "Trust an Oxford man for employing any arms but his own, when a pair of sculls are in question!"
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ISLAND IN THE RIVER.
It was just eight o'clock when we started, with the twilight coming on. Our course