streets. The idea of the dead woman popped into his imagination,

and gave him a hearty fright; what had happened to her in the early

night might very well happen to him before morning. And he so

young! and with such immense possibilities of disorderly amusement

before him! He felt quite pathetic over the notion of his own

fate, as if it had been some one else's, and made a little

imaginative vignette of the scene in the morning when they should

find his body.

He passed all his chances under review, turning the white between

his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with

some old friends who would once have taken pity on him in such a

plight. He had lampooned them in verses, he had beaten and cheated

them; and yet now, when he was in so close a pinch, he thought

there was at least one who might perhaps relent. It was a chance.

It was worth trying at least, and he would go and see.

On the way, two little accidents happened to him which coloured his

musings in a very different manner. For, first, he fell in with

the track of a patrol, and walked in it for some hundred yards,

although it lay out of his direction. And this spirited him up; at

least he had confused his trail; for he was still possessed with

the idea of people tracking him all about Paris over the snow, and

collaring him next morning before he was awake. The other matter

affected him very differently. He passed a street corner, where,

not so long before, a woman and her child had been devoured by

wolves. This was just the kind of weather, he reflected, when

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