MONTRIUL I AM apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight; but never more so than when a poor devil comes to offer his service to so poor a devil as myself; and, as I know this weakness, I always suffer my judgment to draw back something on that very account and this, more or less, according to the mood I am in, and the case;—and, I may add, the gender, too, of the person I am to govern. When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I could make, for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the matter at once in his favour; so I hired him first, and then began to enquire what he could do. But I shall find out his talents, quoth I, as I want them; besides, a Frenchman can do everything. Now, poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum, and play a march or two upon the fife, I was determined to make his talents do: and can't say my weakness was ever so insulted by my wisdom as in the attempt. La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most Frenchmen do, with serving for a few years; at the end of which, having satisfied the sentiment, and found, moreover, that the honour of beating a drum was likely to be its own reward, as it opened no further track of glory to him, he retired a ses terres, and lived comme il plaisoit à Dieu;-that is to say, upon nothing. And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to attend you in this tour of yours through France and Italy !.... Pshaw! said I, and do not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum compagnon du roiage the same round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay besides? When a man can extricate himself with an equivoque in such an unequal match,—he is not ill off.... But you can do something else, La Fleur? said I..... O qu' oui! he could make spatterdashes, and could play a little upon the fiddle.-Bravo! said Wisdom.Why, I play a bass myself, said I; we shall do very well. You can shave, and dress a wig a little, La Fleur ?—He had all the dispositions in the world...........It is enough for Heaven, said I, interrupting him—and ought to be enough for me.-So supper coming in, and having a frisky English spaniel on one side of my chair, and a French valet, with as much hilarity in his |