“ ‘What do you say,’ interrupted I.

“ ‘I tell you,’ replied she, ‘there is nothing to be done, if you have not brought four Louis.’

“ ‘How, miss,’ said I quite amazed, ‘is that your full value? It was well worth my while, to be sure, to come from Congo for such a trifle.’ And in a moment I put myself in order, hurried downstairs, and left her.

“I began, madam, as you see, to mistake actresses for princesses.”

“I am quite astonished at it,” replied Mirzoza, “surely the difference is very great.”

“I doubt not,” said Selim, “but they were guilty of a hundred impertinences. But what then? A young man, and a stranger too, is not so nice an observer. And I had heard so many bad stories in Congo, on the liberties taken by the European women.”