Just before dawn Charlie, lying on a pallet in the room, thought he was called, and came to the bedside.
"Old man," whispered the failing invalid, "is it caving yet ?" Charlie nodded.
"It won't pay you out." "Oh, dat makes not'ing," said Charlie.

Two big tears rolled down his brown face.

"Dat makes not'in." The Colonel whispered once more: "_Mes belles demoiselles!_ in paradise;--in the garden--I shall be with them at sunrise;" and so it was.
"POSSON JONE'." [1] [Footnote 1: Published in Appletons' Journal.

Republished by permission.] To Jules St.-Ange--elegant little heathen--there yet remained at manhood a remembrance of having been to school, and of having been taught by a stony-headed Capuchin that the world is round--for example, like a cheese.

This round world is a cheese to be eaten through, and Jules had nibbled quite into his cheese-world already at twenty-two.
He realized this as he idled about one Sunday morning where the intersection of Royal and Conti Streets some seventy years ago formed a central corner of New Orleans.