Many a shirt of fine linen, ruffled and embroidered, according to the latest fashion, disguises the graceless person of some rascally parvenu--and usurer as well perhaps--who usurps the place of his betters.

Several of the great heroes, of immortal fame, had not a shirt to their backs--Ulysses, for example, that wise and valiant man, who presented himself before the beautiful Princess Nausicaa, with no other covering than a bunch of sea-weed--as we are told, in the Odyssey, by the grand old bard, Homer." "Unfortunately," de Sigognac replied, "there is no point of resemblance, my dear Blazius, between me and the brave King of Ithaca, save the lack of linen.

_I_ have done no deeds of valour to shed a lustre over MY poverty.

I have had no chance to make myself famous, and I fear that the poets will never celebrate my praises in glowing hexameters.

But, jesting aside, I must confess that I do feel greatly annoyed at being forced to appear in this guise here.