“He!  Mahomet Ali!”

“I ordered him to say nothing.  I had a score to settle with you.  But we dine at eight, Captain Joyce.  We live plainly here, but I think I can do you a little better than you did me at Kurkur.”

A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE

There are many folk who knew Alphonse Lacour in his old age.  From about the time of the Revolution of ’48 until he died in the second year of the Crimean War he was always to be found in the same corner of the Cafe de Provence, at the end of the Rue St. Honore, coming down about nine in the evening, and going when he could find no one to talk with.  It took some self-restraint to listen to the old diplomatist, for his stories were beyond all belief, and yet he was quick at detecting the shadow of a smile or the slightest little raising of the eyebrows.  Then his huge, rounded back would straighten itself, his bull-dog chin would project, and his r’s would burr like a kettledrum.  When he got as far as, “Ah, monsieur r-r-r-rit!” or “Vous ne me cr-r-r-royez pas donc!” it was quite time to remember that you had a ticket for the opera.

There was his story of Talleyrand and the five oyster-shells, and there was his utterly absurd account of Napoleon’s second visit to Ajaccio.  Then there was that most circumstantial romance (which he never ventured upon until his second bottle had been uncorked) of the Emperor’s escape from St. Helena—­how he lived for a whole year in Philadelphia, while Count Herbert de Bertrand, who was his living image, personated him at Longwood.  But of all his stories there was none which was more notorious than that of the Koran and the Foreign Office messenger.  And yet when Monsieur Otto’s memoirs were written it was found that there really was some foundation for old Lacour’s incredible statement.

“You must know, monsieur,” he would say, “that I left Egypt after Kleber’s assassination.  I would gladly have stayed on, for I was engaged in a translation of the Koran, and between ourselves I had thoughts at the time of embracing Mahometanism, for I was deeply struck by the wisdom of their views about marriage.  They had made an incredible mistake, however, upon the subject of wine, and this was what the Mufti who attempted to convert me could never get over.  Then when old Kleber died and Menou came to the top, I felt that it was time for me to go.  It is not for me to speak of my own capacities, monsieur, but you will readily understand that the man does not care to be ridden by the mule.  I carried my Koran and my papers to London, where Monsieur Otto had been sent by the First Consul to arrange a treaty of peace; for both nations were very weary of the war, which had already lasted ten years.  Here I was most useful to Monsieur Otto on account of my knowledge of the English tongue, and also, if I may say so, on account of my natural capacity.  They were happy days during which I lived in the square of Bloomsbury.  The climate of monsieur’s country is, it must be confessed, detestable.  But then what would you have?  Flowers grow best in the rain.  One has but to point to monsieur’s fellow country-women to prove it.