102 BEIT ANN Y AND THE CHASE. 



into a snug cove, light our cigars, open our havresacs, and 

 so defy all outward things, leaving the future to take 

 care of itself. We therefore got our companions on shore, 

 and reared up one here, and put another on his end there, 

 telHng all to keep up their tails and take a sip from the 

 Mack bottle; and then commenced a cosv chat which I 

 shall long remember. In truth, my quiet reserved ac- 

 quaintance, who \Yas content to act instead of talking, was 

 a somewhat remarkable man, who had well performed his 

 part in that very large theatre, the world, at a very 

 striking period in its history ; and having been neglected 

 and snubbed by the powers that be, had retired into him- 

 self and left them alone. He had been a revolutionist 

 enrage of the most exalted school, had supported his doc- 

 trines by his sword, had seen the fallacy of many of them, 

 and had subsided into a sensible moderate man ; his opi- 

 nions corrected by experience, and his theory considerably 

 altered, its crudities removed and its exuberance reduced, 

 but the whole settling down into a definite practical 

 shape. 



He had assisted actively in the revolution of February, 

 1848, and was appointed to a captaincy in the Garde 

 Mobile. What a singular force was this Garde Mobile ! 

 but what a clever idea it was that organised it ; and whe- 

 ther it arose with Lamartine or Laoprano;e is immaterial to 

 us. All men who know anything about Paris must know 

 that celebrated class of society called the gamin. The Paris 

 gamin answers to the London scamp, only that it is a juve- 

 nile — a sucking scamp. In numbers it is countless, re- 

 ceiving daily recruits from all sides — children abandoned 



