The Arethusa was unwisely dressed. He is no pre-
cisian in attire; but by all accounts, he was never so
ill-inspired as on that tramp; having set forth indeed,
upon a moment's notice, from the most unfashionable
spot in Europe, Barbizon. On his head he wore a
smoking-cap of Indian work, the gold lace pitifully
frayed and tarnished. A flannel shirt of an agreeable
dark hue, which the satirical called black; a light tweed
coat made by a good English tailor; ready-made cheap
linen trousers and leathern gaiters completed his array.
In person, he is exceptionally lean; and his face is not,
like those of happier mortals, a certificate. For years
he could not pass a frontier or visit a bank without sus-
picion; the police everywhere, but in his native city,
looked askance upon him; and (though I am sure it
will not be credited) he is actually denied admittance
to the casino of Monte Carlo. If you will imagine him,
dressed as above, stooping under his knapsack, walking
nearly five miles an hour with the folds of the ready-
made trousers fluttering about his spindle shanks, and
still looking eagerly round him as if in terror of pur-
suit--the figure, when realised, is far from reassuring.
When Villon journeyed (perhaps by the same pleasant
valley) to his exile at Roussillon, I wonder if he had
not something of the same appearance. Something of
the same preoccupation he had beyond a doubt, for
he too must have tinkered verses as he walked, with
more success than his successor. And if he had any-
thing like the same inspiring weather, the same nights
of uproar, men in armour rolling and resounding down
the stairs of heaven, the rain hissing on the village
streets, the wild bull's-eye of the storm flashing all night

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