CHAPTER XXVII.
FRANCIS ARDRY--HIS MISFORTUNES--DOG AND LION FIGHT--GREAT MEN OF THE WORLD.
A few days after the circumstance which I have last commemorated, it chanced that, as I was standing at the door of the inn, one of the numerous stage-coaches which were in the habit of stopping there drove up, and several passengers got down.

I had assisted a woman with a couple of children to dismount and had just delivered to her a bandbox, which appeared to be her only property, and which she had begged me to fetch down from the roof, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder and heard a voice exclaim, "Is it possible, old fellow that I find you in this place ?" I turned round, and wrapped in a large blue cloak, I beheld my good friend Francis Ardry.

I shook him most warmly by the hand, and said, "If you are surprised to see me, I am no less so to see you; where are you bound to ?" "I am bound for L.

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.; at any rate I am booked for that sea-port," said my friend in reply.
"I am sorry for it," said I, "for in that case we shall have to part in a quarter of an hour, the coach by which you came stopping no longer." "And whither are you bound ?" demanded my friend.
"I am stopping at present in this house, quite undetermined as to what to do." "Then come along with me," said Francis Ardry.
"That I can scarcely do," said I; "I have a horse in the stall which I cannot afford to ruin by racing to L.