front of the inn at the end of the village, he called out to stop. I did so, and Blaise, coming up to my stirrup, handed me a folded paper and thus addressed me:

"Of course your father has given you all the advice you need. Nobody is more competent than he to instruct a young man setting out to see the world. His young days were the days of hard knocks, as everybody knows. But as I was thinking of your journey, there came into my head an old tale a monk told me once—for, like your father, I was never too much of a Huguenot to get what good I might out of any priest or monk the Lord chose to send my way. It's a tale that has to do with travelling, and that's what made me think of it—a tale about three maxims that some wise person once gave a Roman emperor who was going on a journey. I half forget the tale itself, for it isn't much of a tale; but the maxims I remembered, because I had had experience enough to realize their value. I've written them out for you there: and if you get them by heart, and never lose sight of them, you'll perhaps save yourself much repentance."

He then bade me good-bye, and the last I saw of him he was entering the inn to drink to my good fortune.

When I had got clear of the village, I unfolded Blaise's paper and read the maxims:

1. "Never undertake a thing unless you can see your way to the end of it."

2. "Never sleep in a house where the master is old and the wife young."

3. "Never leave a highway for a byway."

Very good counsel, thought I, and worth bearing in mind. It was true, my very journey itself was, as to its foolhardy purpose, a violation of the first maxim. But that could not be helped now, and I could at least heed that piece of advice, as well as the others, in the details of my mission. When I thought of that mission, I felt both foolish and heavy-hearted. I had not the faintest idea yet of how I should go about encountering Brignan de Brignan and getting into a quarrel with him, and I had great misgivings as to how I should be able to conduct myself in that quarrel, and as to its outcome. Certainly no man ever took the road on a more incredible, frivolous quest. Of all the people travelling my way, that June morning, T was probably one of the most thoughtful and judiciously-minded; yet of every one but myself the business in being abroad was sober and reasonable, while mine was utterly ridiculous and silly. And the girl whose banter had driven me to it—perhaps she had 

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