enfeebled, he was disfigured by the loss of an eye; he had spent eight years in the mines at Kara.  He began to sink.  Let those blame him who know how hard it is to swim.  From borrowing, from begging, he sank to I dare not guess what.  I am afraid there can be no doubt that for a while he served the Russian secret police as a spy; but he proved an unremunerative spy; they turned him off.  He took to drink, he sank lower and lower, he became whatever is lowest.  I had not seen him or heard of him for years, when, yesterday, I read the announcement of his death in the Figaro.’

The old man set me down at the corner of the Rue Racine.  I have never met him again; I have never learned who he was.

The other day, being in Paris, I made a pilgrimage to the Cemetery of Montparnasse, to look at Bibi’s grave.  The wooden cross we had erected over it was pied with weather-stains, the inscription more than half obliterated—­

ALEXIS DIMITRIEVITCH KASGHINE

Ne a MOSCOU, le 20 JANVIER, 1823,

MORT a PARIS, le 20 DECEMBRE, 1884.

Priez pour lui.

A RE-INCARNATION

We were, according to our nightly habit, in possession of the Cafe des Souris—­dear Cafe des Souris, that is no more; and our assiduous patronage rumour alleges to have been the death of it—­we were in possession of the Cafe des Souris, a score or so of us, chiefly English speakers, and all votaries of one or other of the ‘quatre-z-arts,’ when the door swung open, and he entered.

Now, the entrance of anybody not a member of our particular cenacle into the Cafe des Souris, we, who felt (I don’t know why) that we had proprietary rights in the establishment, could not help deeming somewhat in the nature of an unwarranted intrusion; so we stopped our talk for an instant, and stared at him:  a man of medium stature, heavily built, with hair that fell to his shoulders, escaping from beneath a broad-brimmed, soft felt hat, knee breeches like a bicyclist’s, and, in lieu of overcoat, a sort of doublet, or magnified cape, of buff-coloured cloth.

He supported our examination, and the accompanying interval of silence, which ordinary flesh and blood might have found embarassing, with more than composure—­with, it seemed to me, a dimly perceptible, subcutaneous smile, as of satisfaction—­and seated himself at the only vacant table.  This world held nothing human worthy to rivet our attention longer than thirty seconds, whence, very soon, we were hot in debate again.  It was the first Sunday in May; I need hardly add that our subject-matter was the Vernissage, at which the greater number of us had assisted.