THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS.
* * * * *
I.
THE EXILES.
In the latter part of October, 1863, seven very anxious and dilapidated
personages were assembled under the roof of an old, eight-storied
tenement, near the church of St. Sulpice, in the city of Paris.
The seven under consideration had reached the catastrophe of their
decline--and rise. They had met in solemn deliberation to pass
resolutions to that effect, and take the only congenial means for
replenishment and reform. This means lay in miniature before a caged
window, revealed by a superfluity of light--a roulette-table, whereon
the ball was spinning industriously from the practised fingers of Mr.
Auburn Risque, of Mississippi.
Mr. Auburn Risque had a spotted eye and a bluishly cold face; his
fingers were the only movable part of him, for he performed respiration
and articulation with the same organ--his nose; and the sole words
vouchsafed by this at present were:
"Black--black--black--white--black--white--white--black"--etc.
The five surrounding parties were carefully noting upon fragments of
paper the results of the experiment, and likewise Master Lees, the
lessee of the chamber--a pale, emaciated youth, sitting up in bed, and
ciphering tremulously, with bony fingers; even he, upon whom disease had
made auguries of death, looked forward to gold, as the remedy which
science had not brought, for a wasted youth of dissipation and
incontinence.
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