CAPTAIN WELLS OF FORT WAYNE We tarried at the table a considerable time,--not because of any tempting variety in the repast, as the food furnished was of the coarsest, but for the sake of companionship, and because we discovered much of passing interest to converse about.

De Croix had travelled widely, and had seen a great variety of life both in camp and court.
He proved a vivacious fellow, full of amusing anecdote,--a bottle of rich wine drawn from his own private stock so stimulating his imagination that I had little to do but sit and listen.

Yet he contrived to learn from me,--how, I hardly know,--the simple story of my life, and, indeed, assumed a certain air of patronizing superiority, boasting unduly of his wider experience and achievements in a way that somewhat nettled me at last, as I began to comprehend that he was merely showing off his genteel graces the better to exhibit his contempt for my provincial narrowness.

I did not permit this really to anger me, for our views upon such matters were totally different, and I could not help feel admiration for the brilliant and audacious fellow.
The black waited upon us while we ate and drank, moving noiselessly across the rough floor, so keenly observant of his master's slightest wish as to convince me the latter possessed a temper which upon occasion burst its bounds.

Yet now he was surely in the best of humors; and with the coming of our second bottle, after the remains of the repast had been removed, he sang several love-songs in his native tongue, the meaning of which I could only guess at.
"Saint Guise!" he exclaimed at last, flinging one booted foot over the table corner.