hear. When the fury of great Bokion de | water to run through; above, came smallBournic was a little exhausted, he continued,

The road was, however, commenced that same spring. Workmen arrived from the environs, and a fortnight later every man who had a cart of his own at Chaumes, begged to exonerate himself of his share of expenses by supplying stones and sand; others came forward for the corvées. The Mayor accepted their help most joyfully; and, towards the end of July the following year, we had, in spite of Monsieur Jean's inward vexation, a splendid vicinal road that went from Chaumes to Saarbourg. It I had never seen him in such excellent was as solid as iron underground; it spirits. His char-à-bancs, drawn by two was all paved with large stones for the little nimble steeds, flew on as fast as the

mail-post. The Mayor looked at his watch every now and then, exclaiming,

“Here we are, I declare, at Nitting; here we are at Hesse! We should not have done this in two hours before the road was made, and we have not been fifty minutes! We shall be at Phalsbourg before ten!"

The landscape was lovely; for the reapers were harvesting, and innumerable quantities of golden corn, bound in sheaves, rose over the fields. The good people turned round and stopped in the middle of their work to look at us go by. "Hé!" cried Monsieur Jacques, touching up his horses, "one can get along now; there is no one wanted to push the wheels forward, eh?"

"Oh no, Monsieur le Maire," answered they; "we are getting on splendidly."

At ten o'clock we reached Phalsbourg, and Monsieur Jacques pulled his watch out for the last time.

active, for her husband, Monsieur Antoni, did nothing but smoke his pipe and drink white wine. How did she conduct such a tremendous concern as that inn all alone, how did she look over the cooks and lodgings, supervise the attendance, and never forget a single thing in such a state of high pressure? I can only say she was a very clever woman. She had scarcely left us when the servant came to lead our horses to the stable, then we shook the dust off our coats and went to the college, where George had been looking out for us the whole morning.

I shall not relate all that took place on this day; nothing about the college, the head master, the professors, the students, the speeches, nor the ceremony of the distribution of prizes. It would be too long a story. Let each fancy the best thing he has seen in this line; the military music, the fathers and mothers sitting in the hall, and shedding tears of "Now what did I tell you?" he asked. emotion when they placed the wreaths "We have done it in four hours, and it that were passed to them on the brows of would have taken us ten or twelve a year their children. Let each fancy George, ago. We should still be sticking over now a great boy, with a slight moustache head and ears in the mire if my brother and beard like his father's. Any one can Jean's ideas had been carried out. Al-imagine him coming up to embrace me Ions! here is Mother Antoni coming to welcome us. Hue!"

The char-à-bancs was crossing the principal square that was full of people, and we stopped in front of the Bâle inn. The relatives of the college students from Alsace and Lorraine, their fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers all stopped here. In this period of vicinal roads and new prosperity the Bâle inn, therefore, did a large business. It cost no less than thirty sous to get a dinner there; but the great carriers, the business travellers, and landowners of the environs, who had their stand under the entrance, or in the courtyard of this large establishment, did not mind expense.

Madame Antoni, a fine, dark, buxom matron, in a high white cap, ran out, exclaiming,

"So here you are, Monsieur le Maire! coming again to see your young man take his prizes? Kaspar, Kaspar, come and attend to Monsieur le Maire's horses. Quick! Of course you will dine here, Monsieur Rantzau?"

"I shall, Madame Antoni, between two and three o'clock, after the prizes. You will lay covers for three."

"Oh! I'll settle that nicely. I will see you are attended to."

Madame Antoni was a woman of uncommon energy. She was wonderfully

with glistening eyes when I gave him his prize with my blessing, and placed a beautiful oaken wreath on his forehead.

Such touching scenes cannot be described. And then, to think I had had that boy in my school, he who had become one of the best scholars among the philosophers, and who still remembered me, I was beside myself - and I could not help admitting there are happy days in a lifetime after all.

This was one of them. George carried off the French prize for elocution, and the prize for Latin discourse, also the prizes for natural history, geography, and mathematics; he knew ten times more than I did, and was a savant!

That is what it is to have a wealthy father who does not look at the money he spends on his son's education. How many unfortunate young men there are in this world who are gifted with sterling abilities, and who, with a little outlay, would become both useful and remarkable members of society; but who, all means failing, turn out dangerous beings, good for nothing, but finding fault with everything. When such as these compare themselves to men placed above them, they naturally feel their superiority and pick everything to pieces, showing this bad example to others beneath them, who are soon led away. I had noticed

horses in high glee; now and then shouting out, "We have gained five prizes; our name will be mentioned in the Moniteur de la Meurthe; how we are getting along! Hue!"

It only took us three hours to reach Chaumes. The char-à-bancs stopped about three minutes in front of my door. I got down, shook hands, and had not gone up more than two steps before I heard it rattling off again through the village.

I kissed my wife as if I had not seen her for three years—and laughed.

Then we dined — such a dinner! There was no end to it. Big Alsatians turned about Monsieur Jacques all the time Marie-Barbe was quite surprised. Forwhile he sat in his glory, ordering all tunately, I reflected it had never been a sorts of wines-claret, burgundy, and habit of mine to go on in this way. I even champagne! I did not know what understood how the matter stood, put on I was drinking at length, and had we not my old clothes, and sat down with much been obliged to keep up our dignity after gravity to tell my wife and Juliette, who our triumphs, I really think we should had just come home, all the occurrences have sung. I who had never sung any of this memorable day. Both shared my where but in the choir, and who had nev-joy. er danced in my life, I could have sung and danced too. I laughed without knowing why, and embraced my pupil in fits of effusion.

There is nothing extraordinary in a man being a little too merry once in fifty years, he has gone through a good deal of trouble and misery in that time, and one happy day out of the number is a thing long to be remembered. It was five when Monsieur Jacques settled the reckoning, and paid, I do not know how much. We then left Phalsbourg with George, carrying all his things with us, for he was leaving college for good.

I went to bed that night without any supper, and slept like a top until seven the following morning, when my wife had to wake me up for school.

The events of this happy day being now recorded, I must get on with my story, for one chapter is no sooner over than another begins.

From Chambers' Journal. MALINGERING.

Of the art of simulating disease, with Thank God, Monsieur le Maire's eye- view to escape some irksome duty, which sight was not at all troubled. If I had is familiarly known as "malingering," had to drive we should have gone clear many curious examples are related. The over the parapet of the bridge. When principal qualities necessary in a good we were once out in the open air, how-simulator are acute powers of observaever, I began to recover, and finding that the horses were galloping along through the fields, I said within myself," Florent, my good friend, you can pride yourself on having taken a little over your usual measure for once."

At Saarbourg I was all right again. As to George, he was delighted to have finished off at college with all the honours, and to see me enjoy myself. All the way back to Chaumes I did nothing but talk, recalling the most unimportant circumstances of his boyhood; how he had learnt to spell; how he had formed his first upstrokes; and how he had put his figures down on the slate. In fact, I left nothing untold, and George went on saying he remembered it all very well.

Monsieur Jacques whipped up the

tion, a talent for mimicry, some knowledge of human nature, and great tenacity of purpose. The last-named quality is usually the only one to which the common type of malingerer can lay claim. To assume a simple rôle, such as inability to hear, or articulate, or move a limb, and doggedly to stick to it, often in the face of the plainest exposure of the fraud, is all that he considers necessary. But the higher class of practitioners take a much more enlightened and ambitious view of the requisites of their art. Some of them evince a power of observing the minuter manifestations of disease which would not discredit a practitioner of the healing art, joined to a faculty of imitation which would enable them at least to earn a livelihood in some departments of

histrionic art. As a rule, over-acting is | clinical lecture to his students on his the common æsthetic vice of simulators. very interesting case. He must have The sham paralytic, though he shows no needed all the artistic satisfaction which difficulty in protruding his tongue, will he experienced to enable him to brave turn it a trifle too much to one side; the the discomforts of his position. How he spurious lunatic will be much too incon- stood the variety of active treatment to sequential in his ideas and actions; the which he was subjected, is something counterfeit deaf-mute fails not only to wonderful. Enormous quantities of powrecognize the loudest sounds, but even erful drugs, including some very potent the vibrations of the sound-wave pro- poisons, were administered internally, duced by striking a resonant body on while his head and back were kept exterwhich he may be standing, to which a nally at something like the temperature real deaf-mute is never insensible. But of an iceberg. On one occasion his death some are able to render the characteristic appearing imminent, the services of the symptoms of particular maladies with re- chaplain were called in, and the sufferer markable fidelity. One of the most ex- viewed his approaching end with patience traordinary cases of successful simulation and Christian fortitude. He proceeded on record is one which, despite modern to settle his worldly affairs, made his will, facilities of detection, occurred in recent in which he considerately left a round sum, years. This artist, who, up to last year, "free of legacy duty," to the hospital was a frequent inmate in one or other of which sheltered him, not forgetting also the London hospitals, visiting some of the physician's assistant who had charge them more than once, shewed his confi- of him. In return for so much consideradence in his own powers by selecting one tion, the hospital authorities looked well of the most difficult parts presented in after his comforts, allowed him any quanthe whole range of disease. To feign tity of stimulants, with soups specially paralysis of one half of the body, which procured for him. His career at this instihe frequently did, is not so uncommon a tution was at last put an end to by one of thing; but his leading part was tetanus, a his previous dupes happening to call and condition in which the muscles are thrown expose him. It is probable that this genius, into a state of violent and continuous con- after a very successful run on several traction. Some medical jurists had, in- metropolitan boards, is now starring it in deed, pronounced it impossible to simu- the provinces. late this affection with even tolerable ac- The way in which artists in disease curacy. To do so must require not only have occasionally been balked of their extraordinary command over the muscular hard-earned success, after they had all system, but must involve a very consider- but attained it, must have not a little tanable and constant expenditure of physical talized them. A seaman of the navy energy, with great discomfort, through a feigned a chronic decline so well that he weary succession of restless days and was on the point of being discharged sleepless nights. In spite, however, of when the real nature of his disease was all these difficulties and inconveniences, very unexpectedly elucidated. The mail this man rendered the part so well as to from the seaport at which the man was in deceive the practised eyes which watched hospital had been robbed, and the letters him. At first, as was to be expected, his broken open with a view to search for acting contained a few mistakes; but money. The burglars were captured, these were often considered merely anom- however, and the letters recovered. alous deviations from the usual course Among them was one from the sick seaof the disease, which rendered his case man to his wife, in which he told her his in a medical view all the more interesting. scheme had succeeded, that he was to be Like a careful artist, however, he gradu- invalided on a certain day, and desiring ally perfected himself in his part. Any- her to make good cheer against his arrithing which in one hospital he gathered val. The feelings of the malingerer may not to be strictly according to rule, was be imagined when his own letter was read rectified on his appearance at another, to him. A soldier who avowed that he until, it is said, he could render the disease from its onset through the different gradations of symptoms from slight to grave with almost faultless fidelity. One would like to know something of the thoughts of the rascal when a learned professor on one occasion delivered a

had lost the power of locomotion was detected by a very simple ruse, after other means had failed. The doctor gently tapped at the window of the room in which the paralyzed man was sitting alone after dark, at the same time softly calling his name, when he at once appeared at the

window. "How long have you been | ness in open court. The panel, an old dumb, my friend?" said a passenger on woman, pretended to be as deaf as a post. shipboard once to a pretended mute. "You are accused," roared Casper in her "Three weeks, sir,” replied the incautious ear, "of severely injuring the woman simpleton. An old device of army sur- Lemke." "It is not true." "But," geons, in suspicious cases of deafness, roared Casper again, "the woman Lemke was to commence a conversation in a asserts that it is true," and then rapidly high tone, and gradually to lower the added in a low tone," and she is cer voice to an ordinary pitch. A common tainly not a liar." Her wrath for a momalingerer would probably continue to ment got the better of her consistency, reply to the questions put, from not ob- and she rejoined, to the amusement of serving the alteration. The most remark- the whole court: "Yes, indeed, she is a able example on record of success in sim- liar." Possibly the nationality of the ulating deaf-dumbness (or deafness from hero of the following incident is chargebirth) is that of a Frenchman, best known able with the impulsive imprudence which under his assumed name of Victor Foy, betrayed him. An Irish army recruit at the beginning of the present century. who had suddenly lost his hearing was This young man travelled about, ostensi- sent into hospital, and put, by the docbly in search of his father, but really, in tor's order, on spoon-meat. For nine his character of a deaf-mute, to escape days the latter in his visits passed the military conscription. For four years his deaf man's bed without seeming to notice extraordinary ingenuity baffled all the him; on the tenth day, after examining tests to which he was subjected by some the state of his tongue and pulse, he of the most scientific men in France, asked the attendant what kind of food Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy. the patient was getting. On being told In Switzerland he was tempted to avow he was on spoon-meat, he affected to be the deceit by a young, rich, and beauti- very angry. "Are you not ashamed of ful woman offering him her hand; but yourself?" said he to the nurse. "The even this bait did not take. In the prison poor fellow is almost starved to death. at Rochelle, the turnkey was ordered to Let him at once have a beef-steak and a watch him closely, to sleep with him, and pint of porter." "God bless your honnever to quit him; and even the prison- our !" blurted out the deaf recruit; "you ers were encouraged to make him betray are the best gentleman I have seen for himself. To throw him off his guard, he many a day!" Under the influence of was often violently awakened out of sleep, strong emotion of any kind, only a limited but his fright was expressed only in the class of malingerers have sufficient selfusual plaintive cry of a mute; and it is command to play their parts. An amussaid that even in his dreams only guttural ing example of the way in which, in the sounds were heard. At last, the Abbé heat of passion, every vestige of pretence Sicard, director of the institution for deaf- is sometimes thrown away, is related by mutes at Paris, to whom a specimen of a surgeon of the navy, to whose expehis writing had been transmitted, prompt-riences we have already been indebted. ly pronounced him an impostor, on the ground that his blunders in spelling were phonetic in their character - that he wrote, not as he saw, but as he heard. M. Sicard afterwards subjected him to a personal examination, at the end of which he was obliged to confess the imposition.

A seaman on board a frigate, who pretended to be totally blind, and was believed to be so, was on one occasion allowed to go on shore with an attendant to lead him. The pair happened to quarrel, and come to blows; when the blind man, finding himself unduly handicapped, instantly regained his sight, and got the better of his astonished guide. The latter took to flight, was pursued through a great part of the town by his late protégé, and finally got a severe drubbing from him. The application of the cat-o'-ninetails next day to the back of the impostor, effectually cured him of any further tendency to defect of vision.

A very simple incident will often suffice to throw a good simulator off his guard. The letter-carrier, on entering a French barrack-room on one occasion, called out the names of the men for whom he had letters, and among them that of a man believed by everybody to be labouring under almost total deafness. For one moment he forgot his part, and answered The amount of fortitude-call it obstito his name. Casper, the celebrated Ger- nacy, if you will displayed by some of man medical jurist, on one occasion this class of impostors is something amaz neatly exposed a case of counterfeit deaf-ing. Day and night they will remain in