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 and friendless banishment; but that you may not starve I grant you this one grace, that each woman may bear with her from this place as much of her most valuable property as she is able to carry. Very well, presently the gates swung open and out filed those women carrying their husbands on their shoulders. The besiegers, furious at the trick, rushed forward to slaughter the men, but the Duke stepped between and said,—

"No, put up your swords,—a prince's word is inviolable."

When we got back to the hotel, King Arthur's Round Table was ready for us in its white drapery, and the head waiter and his first assistant, in swallow-tails and white cravats, brought in the soup and the hot plates at once.

Mr. X. had ordered the dinner, and when the wine came on, he picked up a bottle, glanced at the label, and then turned to the grave, the melancholy, the sepulchral head waiter and said it was not the sort of wine he had asked for. The head waiter picked up the bottle, cast his undertaker-eye on it and said,—

"It is true; I beg pardon." Then he turned on his subordinate and calmly said, "Bring another label."

At the same time he slid the present label off with his hand and laid it aside; it had been newly put on, its paste, was still wet. When the new label came, he put it on; our French wine being now turned into German wine, according