The Argosy — page 84: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- = ee ee a AG a RL} eee Gee 8 6| a Ge eee ee eee ee —- <a b —.- —_ iS ” _ . -——_— se. - 2 = : lk, # See aa eee {2 This Year at Dichpe. [TRE ARCOSY. Dec. 1, 1867. drove some of us nearly wild. One day, at the casino, I ventured a slight question on the delicate subject—wondering what might be the experience of other people—and showed my wrists. Out came a dozen hands, and as many answers—‘ Mine are worse than yours: look at them !”—“ You should see my arms !”—‘“ You should see my neck !”— ‘You should see all over me!” They come from the sand, it is said. The worst things are the gnats; some call them mosquitos. I got fnghtened over one bite I had; but the inflammation went down at last. Lady M told me she was laid up with one the last time she was at Dieppe ; obliged to callin a medical man. These bites sometimes prove highly dangerous, imparting a sort of poison. J remember hear- ing, when staying some years ago at Grenoble, of a death that ensued. On coming down stairs one morning at the end of September, the hotel was in a state of commotion. ‘The chef was in the yard with ms four kitchen aides-de-camp, the waiters were out there, the chamber- maids were out, Madame was out, and Madame D , the amanuensis. This did not tell much, for they were all in the habit of coming out on the slightest possible occasion, or on no occasion at all. It was some- thing now, however. Madame Lefébre, the money-changer at the next door, had been robbed of every coin she possessed—twenty-two thou- sand francs. It was done in this way. Her husband had come down stairs that morning a hittle before six, bringing as usual the cash-box with him. The business and money, be it known, are Madame’s; Monsieur being, as regards that, a sort of nonentity—no uncommon thing in France. He opened the inner shop- door, communicating with the house, and deposited the box on the counter, the shop being still closed to the street, and in darkness, save for the light that came in through a hole in the shutters. He then went to the door of the alley, and opened that. A gentleman was passing with a rapid step. ‘Can you tell me where the steamer lies ?” he askecl of Monsieur Lefébre, ina vast hurry. ‘“‘ Close by, sir; a little way down the port,” replied M. Lefébre, assuming, as a matter of course, that the question referred to the English boat, then about to depart for New- haven. ‘‘ Where P—where 2?” cried the man, all in excitement, as if afraid to lose it; “I can't see it; I shall be too late.” M. Lefébre obligingly stepped off the pavement to show him—for, by partly crossing the road, the steamer could be seen. There the man kept him another minute or so, asking questions, before he went on his way. He spoke French well, but with a slightly foreign accent. M. Lefébre finished the opening of his house, and then missed the cash-box. During that one minute of road-crossing, a confederate must have entered by the alley-door, and taken it. The gens d’armes were aroused ; the telegraph offices were flown to. But the men of arms wasted time in needless queries and conjectures, and the wires could not be got at until nine o'clock. Gradually the ECOMiIcoOolxs.cO©