I--" He was going on to give Honore Grandissime's message, but was interrupted.
"My young friend," rumbled the old man in his deepest key, smiling emotionally and holding and solemning continuing to shake Joseph's hand, "I am sure you are.

You ought to thank God that you have my acquaintance." Frowenfeld colored to the temples.
"I must acknowledge--" he began.
"Ah!" growled the lion, "your beautiful modesty leads you to misconstrue me, sir.

You pay my judgment no compliment.

I know your worth, sir; I merely meant, sir, that in me--poor, humble me--you have secured a sympathizer in your tastes and plans.

Agricola Fusilier, sir, is not a cock on a dunghill, to find a jewel and then scratch it aside." The smile of diffidence, but not the flush, passed from the young man's face, and he sat down forcibly.
"You jest," he said.
The reply was a majestic growl.
"I _never_ jest!" The speaker half sat down, then straightened up again.
"Ah, the Marquis of Caso Calvo!--I must bow to him, though an honest man's bow is more than he deserves." "More than he deserves ?" was Frowenfeld's query.
"More than he deserves!" was the response.
"What has he done?
I have never heard--" The denunciator turned upon Frowenfeld his most royal frown, and retorted with a question which still grows wild in Louisiana: "What"-- he seemed to shake his mane--"what has he _not_ done, sir ?" and then he withdrew his frown slowly, as if to add, "You'll be careful next time how you cast doubt upon a public official's guilt." The marquis's cavalcade came briskly jingling by.