We were now fairly at sea, but before long I found we were likely to remain there; in fact, nothing of consequence eventuated.  I began to regret having taken the affair from the hands in which I had found it, and one day, it being a gala or some insatiable saint’s day, I was riding, perplexed with that and other matters, and paying small attention to the passing crowd.  I was vexed and mortified, and had fully decided to throw up the whole,—­on such hairs do things hang,—­when, suddenly turning a corner, my bridle-reins became entangled in the snaffle of another rider.  I loosened them abstractedly, and not till it was necessary to bow to my strange antagonist, on parting, did I glance up.  The person before me was evidently not accustomed to play the dandy; he wore his clothes ill, sat his horse worse, and was uneasy in the saddle.  The unmistakable air of the gamin was apparent beneath the superficies of the gentleman.  Conspicuous on his costume, and wound like an order of merit upon his breast, glittered a chain, the chain,—­each tiny brick-like gem spiked with a hundred sparks, and building a fabric of sturdy probabilities with the celerity of the genii in constructing Aladdin’s palace.  There, a cable to haul up the treasure, was the chain;—­where was the diamond?  I need not tell you how I followed this young friend, with what assiduity I kept him in sight, up and down, all day long, till, weary at last of his fine sport, as I certainly was of mine, he left his steed in stall and fared on his way a-foot.  Still pursuing, now I threaded quay and square, street and alley, till he disappeared in a small shop, in one of those dark crowded lanes leading eastward from the Pont Neuf, in the city.  It was the sign of a marchand des armures, and, having provided myself with those persuasive arguments, a sergent-de-ville and a gendarme, I entered.

A place more characteristic it would be impossible to find.  Here were piled bows of every material, ash, and horn, and tougher fibres, with slackened strings, and among them peered a rusty clarion and battle-axe, while the quivers that should have accompanied lay in a distant corner, their arrows serving to pin long, dusty, torn banners to the wall.  Opposite the entrance, an archer in bronze hung on tiptoe, and levelled a steel bow, whose piercing fleche seemed sparkling with impatience to spring from his finger and flesh itself in the heart of the intruder.  The hauberk and halberd, lance and casque, arquebuse and sword, were suspended in friendly congeries; and fragments of costly stuff swept from ceiling to floor, crushed and soiled by the heaps of rusty firelocks, cutlasses, and gauntlets thrown upon them.  In one place, a little antique bust was half hid in the folds of some pennon, still dyed with battle-stains; in another, scattered treasures of Dresden and Sevres brought the drawing-room into the campaign; and all around bivouacked rifles, whose polished barrels glittered