LXX.

HOSPITALITY IN GRENADA.

Hospitality, always so sacred among the Arabs, was not less so in Grenada; and one cannot read without compassion the anecdote of that old inhabitant of Grenada, of whom a stranger, stained with blood and pursued by justice, came to request an asylum.

The old man conceals him in his house. At the same moment the guard arrives demanding the murderer, and bringing to the old man the body of his son which that stranger had just murdered.

The miserable father did not deliver up his guest; and when the guard had departed, "Leave my house," said he to the murderer, "in order that I may be allowed to pursue you."

LXXI.

THE ATTENTIVE SON.

A country-woman said to her son, who was setting out for Paris, "My boy, as soon as you have arrived, you will send me a letter." As soon as the young man was at Paris he said to his master: "Sir, if you have an old letter which is of no use to you, I would beg of you to give it me."

"What for?" asked his master. "For my mother! who told me to send her one as soon as I should arrive at Paris."

LXXII.

THE SWORD OF BALAAM.

A young student who was showing the museum at Oxford to a company of ladies, pointed out to them, amongst other curiosities, a very rusty steel sword. "Ladies!" he exclaimed, "here is the sword with which Balaam threatened to kill his ass." "I have never heard it said," observed some one in the company, "that Balaam had a sword; I have only seen in the history that he wished for one." You are right," resumed the student, "and this sword is positively the one he wished for."

66

LXXIII.

PURPLE AND PURPLE-FEVER.

A doctor of Poitiers, calling for a patient, is asked by the wife about the state of her husband: "He is very ill," said the doctor. "What then is the matter with him?" "He has the purple-fever." "The purple-fever! How or by what do you see it?" "By his hands; look how stained they are!" "But

they are always like that!" "How! always like that!" "Yes, sir, it is the dye." "How the dye? Is your husband a dyer?" "At your service." "Ah! why did you not tell me

that at first?"

LXXIV.

QUIBBLE.

An old miser, to attach to his service a manservant who only lived too frugally with him, had made this will: "I give and bequeath to the servant who shall close my eyes twelve hundred francs and my estate of Varac.”

The master at last died. The servant demanded of the heirs the legacy which had been left to him. One of them wished to see the will. On reading these words, "who shall close my eyes," he cried out joyfully, "The bequest is void!" "And why so, sir?" "My friend, my uncle was blind of one eye; thou hast not, therefore, been able to close his eyes."

LXXV.

MILITARY HARANGUE.

"What!" exclaimed General Friant, one day on a field of battle, where bullets were falling as thick as hail, and causing the most disciplined to bend their heads.

"For six miserable sous which you receive per day, one would think you are afraid to die.... Look at me! I have fifty thousand francs of income, and I am not afraid.... Come, raise up your heads, and let me see your moustaches!"

LXXVI.

HOLBEIN.

An English nobleman complained to Henry VIII. about Holbein, who had thrown him downstairs at the moment he was going to break his door open, and abused him with threats of vengeance.

"My lord," said the king to him, "I forbid you, under the penalty of your life, attempting that of my painter. The difference I find between you two is great, for out of seven peasants I can in a moment make seven counts such as you; I could never make a Holbein out of them."

LXXVII.

PATRIOTISM.

A king of Lacedemon, on the point of engaging in battle, wished to save an old man of eighty years of age from danger: he sends

с

him back to Sparta: "Prince," said the old man to him, "you are sending me back a very long way to seek a bed to die on. Where can I find one more honourable than this field of battle?"

He was allowed to remain; and collecting or gathering all his strength, he died fighting for his fatherland.

་

LXXVIII.

CONJUGAL DEVOTION.

The commandant Lavergne appeared before Fouqier-Tinville, and was condemned to death. At the moment when the fatal sentence is pronounced, energetic and repeated cries of Long live the King" are heard in the audience. The tribunal orders the person audacious enough to brave them thus to be seized. They bring Madame Lavergne to him, who declares that she has only found this means of sharing the fate of her husband. The judges granted her request.

LXXIX.

A MOTHER.

I can never recall to my memory without shuddering the extraordinary word of a mother,