sous a day by cramming a dull boy’s brain with algebra and geometry, that was not enough to feed us all.  Well, to cut a long story short, the day came when we had not a coin among us.  I forgot to tell you that I was devotedly attached to a young girl who was dying of consumption, and who had neither food nor fuel.  What could I do?  I knew not.  Half mad, I rushed from the house, asking myself if I had better plead for charity or take the money I required by force from the first passer-by.  I wandered along the quays, half inclined to confide my sorrow to the Seine, when suddenly I remembered it was a holiday at the Polytechnic School, and that if I went to the Cafe Semblon or the Palais Royal, I should most likely meet with some of my old pupils, who could perhaps lend me a few sous.  Five francs perhaps, Marquis,—­that is a very small sum, but in that day it meant the life of my dear Marie and of my two friends.  Have you ever been hungry, M. de Croisenois?”

De Croisenois started; he had never suffered from hunger, but how could he tell what the future might bring? for his resources were so nearly exhausted, that even to-morrow he might be compelled to discard his fictitious splendor and sink into the abyss of poverty.

“When I reached the Cafe Semblon,” continued Mascarin, “I could not see a single pupil, and the waiter to whom I addressed my inquiries looked at me with the utmost contempt, for my clothes were in tatters; but at length he condescended to inform me that the young gentlemen had been and gone, but that they would return.  I said that I would wait for them.  The man asked me if I would take anything, and when I replied in the negative, contemptuously pointed to a chair in a distant corner, where I patiently took my seat.  I had sat for some time, when suddenly a young man entered the cafe, whose face, were I to live for a century, I shall never forget.  He was perfectly livid, his features rigid, and his eyes wild and full of anguish.  He was evidently in intense agony of mind or body.  Evidently, however, it was not poverty that was oppressing him, for as he cast himself upon a sofa, all the waiters rushed forward to receive his orders.  In a voice that was almost unintelligible, he asked for a bottle of brandy, and pen, ink, and paper.  In some mysterious manner, the sight of this suffering brought balm to my aching heart.  The order of the young man was soon executed, and pouring out a tumbler of brandy, he took a deep draught.  The effect was instantaneous, he turned crimson, and for a moment almost fell back insensible.  I kept my eyes on him, for a voice within me kept crying out that there was some mysterious link connecting this man and myself, and that his life was in some manner interwoven with mine, and that the influence he would exercise over me would be for evil.  So strongly did this idea become rooted, that I should have left the cafe, had not my curiosity been so great.  In the meantime the stranger had recovered