The landlord delivered this in a manner which instantly set my mind to the business I was upon, and La Fleur, who stood waiting without, in that breathless expectation which every son of nature of us have felt in our turns, came in.

MONTREUIL.

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 weak

ness 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 à 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 de voyage the same round, and have

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the piper and the devil and all to pay besides? When a man can extricate himself with an équivoque 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 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 countenance as ever nature painted in one, on the other, I was satisfied to my heart's content with my empire; and if monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as satisfied as I was.

MONTREUIL.

As La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and will be often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little further in his behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to repent of the impulses which generally determine me, than in regard to this fellow; he was a faithful, affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged after the heels of a philosopher; and, notwithstanding his talents of drum-beating and spatterdash-making, which, though very good in themselves, happened to be of no great service to me, yet I was hourly recompensed by the festivity of his temper; it supplied all defects :-I had a constant resource in his looks in all difficulties and distresses of my own (I was going to have added of his too); but La Fleur was out of the reach of everything; for, whether 'twas hunger or thirst, or cold or nakedness, or watchings, whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his physiognomy to point them out by, he was eternally the same; so that if I am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and then puts it into my head I am, it always mortifies the pride of the conceit, by reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of this poor fellow, for shaming me into one of a better kind. With all this, La Fleur had a small cast of the coxcomb; but he seemed at first sight to be more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and before I had been three days in Paris with him, he seemed to be no coxcomb at all.

THE next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I delivered to him the key of my portmanteau, with an inventory of my half-a-dozen shirts, and a silk pair of breeches, and bid him fasten all upon the chaise, get the horses put to, and desire the landlord to come in with his bill.

"C'est un garçon de bonne fortune," said the landlord, pointing through the window to half-a-dozen wenches who had got round about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the postillion was leading out the horses. La Fleur kissed all their hands round and round again; and thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would bring them all pardons from Rome.

G