CHAPTER XIII.

TREATS OF THE EVENTS WHICH LED TO DOCTOR J. B. QUIÈS' HAVING MADE AN ADDITIONAL JOURNEY OF ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHT KILOMETERS.

QUIÈS had not been induced to do anything of the sort. Chance, which was so inexorably against him, had once more played him a cruel trick. We think it well, in order to show (although the demonstration be accounted superfluous) of what small and insignificant details the great events of life are composed, to relate as briefly as possible the principal facts of that lamentable Odyssey.

When Commandant La Carriole and Henri were about to leave Algiers, they came to bid Quiès good-bye, and the former asked him whether he wanted anything.

"Nothing but rest," was the doctor's curt reply.

It had not occurred to him that, as he had left SaintPignon with one hundred francs in his purse, expended eighty-five francs seventy-five centîmes on the day of the christening, and not received a centîme since, he was now the possessor of precisely fourteen francs twenty-five centîmes. Reckoning his expenses at the minimum of ten francs a day, it was evident that his funds would not last long. Henri and the Commandant overlooked this little matter as completely as Quiès did. They did not expect to be more than a month away; the doctor had written to Saint-Pignon-the answer to his letter and the money would arrive together. They set off, therefore, without any prevision of the future embarrassment of their unfortunate friend.

For five days all went well. Quiès' meals were served with the same regularity, and he received the same almost obsequious bow from the hotel-keeper and the servants each time that he crossed the vestibule, when venturing to go outside the door for a walk of a few yards.

On the sixth day he observed that his breakfast, which had hitherto been served at eleven o'clock, did not make its appearance until twelve, nor was his dinner served until half-past seven.

On the eighth day his breakfast was entirely suppressed, and when he went downstairs he observed that its cap remained immovably fixed on every head.

These symptoms would have been perfectly intelligible to a man who was well versed in the ways of the world. To Doctor J. B. Quiès they only afforded matter of surprise, and he was still striving to solve the problem when, two days afterwards, a waiter brought him the solution in the form of a bill :

Quiès sent for the proprietor of the hotel, and explained to him that, having left home without money, he could not pay the bill until he had received the funds which he expected from France. The hotel-keeper consented to give him credit until the arrival of the next steamer.

Needless to say that Quiès watched for the coming of the vessel during the three ensuing days, with an anxious eye. One fine evening the steamer came in. The hotel. keeper, who had been watching for its arrival with a still more anxious eye, himself examined all the letters addressed to persons staying in his house. There was one for M. J. B. Quiès, and mine host took it upstairs with

his own hands, and presented himself, bareheaded and with his most gracious smile, before the guest, to whom he was ready to make ample and humble apologies for his misgivings.

Quiès broke the seal, unfolded the letter, and read,— “DEAR SIR,—I do not understand your communication. What do you

"If this fellow thinks that I am going to be done done by him-!"

by him!"

Every traveller

knows that on his travels he is judged by his appearance and the weight of his trunks. No one, therefore, will be surprised that Doctor J. B. Quiès, who had arrived without any luggage at all, and in a dilapidated condition, had not inspired his host with complete confidence. He had been given only just so much credit as was consistent with the more decent appearance of his

two travelling-companions. But they had taken their departure, and Quiès, to use a phrase more significant than choice, now stood on his own bottom. Neither Commandant La Carriole nor M. de Malleville, whose name he attempted to use, was known at the hotel, and he was not acquainted with any person in Algiers. He had, therefore, no valid security to offer.

He asked for two days' respite, and this favour being granted to him, he employed them in writing again to Maître Grimblot, and in running about the town. The two days elapsed, his debt was increased, and he was politely shown the door and told to go about his business. The hotel-keeper carried his generosity so far as to forbear from lodging a complaint against him. Had it not been for the shame of the thing, Quiès would have been delighted to be imprisoned. To sleep in prison is, after all, to find a bed somewhere. Now the poor doctor did not know where to find a bed.

As a matter of fact, that night he slept beneath the

stars.

Under the benign sky of Algiers, this was not quite so bad as it sounds, once in a way, but it was totally opposed to the ideas and the habits of Dr. J. B. Quiès, who was very fond of his bed, and also of his meals.

Alas! the latter seemed likely to be as insecure henceforth as the former; a fact of which he became painfully aware towards noon, when it was his harmless custom to consume two eggs, a cutlet, a dainty morsel of cheese, and a bottle of good French wine. By collecting the remnant of his fortune, he was enabled for that one day to substitute a piece of bread for the eggs, the cutlet, and the cheese, and a copious draught of cold water for the bottle of good French wine. In the evening he dined on a glass of water. The next day he did not breakfast at all, and he had again slept beneath the stars.

How came it, we shall be asked, that in all Algiers there was not a man who would trust the placid Quiès, whose

kindly round face beamed with candour and uprightness ? Could he not, when the worst had come to the worst, have applied to some official personage, and obtained, on proof of his identity, a loan which would have enabled him to await his friends' return or Maître Grimblot's answer? How? why ? Because one does not in general see the way out of a difficult position unless one is not interested in it one's self; because it is easy to lose one's head, and because Doctor J. B. Quiès, who was already severely affected by the shocks he had sustained, gave way under this last trial.

Just as a stray dog will run about the town with its nose down, looking at nobody, seeking no one but its master, being sure of finding shelter nowhere but with him, Quiès, lost in the midst of a crowd of unknown and indifferent people, felt that no succour was to be hoped for except from his friends.

Unhappily his friends were no longer there; they were at Boghar.

He thought at first of apprising them of his terrible. position; but he was not only doubtful whether he could find any charitable soul who would undertake to carry such a message gratis, he also knew that he could not afford to wait for the reply. Harassed and hungry as he was, he should be dead of fatigue and want ere it arrived.

His last, his only chance of rescue was to rejoin them, and that prospect was a frightful one by reason of the length of the way and the difficulty of the enterprise.

Quiès no longer possessed a centime, and the reception he had met with over and over again within the last fortyeight hours, left him no room to hope that he would get credit on the strength of his looks and bearing Perhaps he did not even think of asking it, and he directed his steps towards the office of the diligences from Algiers to Médéah mechanically rather than intentionally.

It was starting-time. The heavy vehicle, drawn by five