and all contemporary roundeleers; but for good reasons, he will be
the last to publish the result. The Cigarette walked burthened
with a volume of Michelet. And both these books, it will be seen,
played a part in the subsequent adventure.
The Arethusa was unwisely dressed. He is no precisian in attire;
but by all accounts, he was never so ill-inspired as on that tramp;
having set forth indeed, upon a moment's notice, from the most
unfashionable spot in Europe, Barbizon. On his head he wore a
smoking-cap of Indian work, the gold lace pitifully frayed and
tarnished. A flannel shirt of an agreeable dark hue, which the
satirical called black; a light tweed coat made by a good English
tailor; ready-made cheap linen trousers and leathern gaiters
completed his array. In person, he is exceptionally lean; and his
face is not, like those of happier mortals, a certificate. For
years he could not pass a frontier or visit a bank without
suspicion; the police everywhere, but in his native city, looked
askance upon him; and (though I am sure it will not be credited) he
is actually denied admittance to the casino of Monte Carlo. If you
will imagine him, dressed as above, stooping under his knapsack,
walking nearly five miles an hour with the folds of the ready-made
trousers fluttering about his spindle shanks, and still looking
eagerly round him as if in terror of pursuit - the figure, when
realised, is far from reassuring. When Villon journeyed (perhaps
by the same pleasant valley) to his exile at Roussillon, I wonder
if he had not something of the same appearance. Something of the
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