THE FLEAS
took their rides out together, Dashem having the choice of any of his horses. As to myself (having been my father's rough rider when he had his manège), I had too much of the saddle to like riding again; my time was more pleasingly engaged in fishing, till the dinner hour. This lasted a week; and if grandeur, crowded with every luxury, were inducements not to quit our princely reception, my Bourgeois spark would have been glad to cast his sheet anchor there. But business calling me to town, not all his persuasions to stop longer could prevail on me to come in snacks for the "good things," as he called them, much to his regret. Making our dévoirs for the honours conferred on us, we took our leave. This excursion was his constant theme after. The dinners—wines—the notice the Prince took of him (not Margrave), honouring hin with his presence in preference to me for his companion to ride out with; these absorbed his thoughts; for a long time he talked of nothing else. His hunters now were laid upon the shelf; all was, that "some have greatness thrust upon them." Returning to our late pursuits, I to the foil, the other to his hops (no dancing master); 'Twas "Stick to the shop, and the shop will stick to you."
The Fleas.
During the August holidays, when I was a school-boy, my father and mother took my two eldest sisters to place them in a convent in French Flanders, having fixed on the Ursulines, at Lisle. On our arrival there, a grand fête was given (that lasted during our stay), on the occasion of its being the completion of the first hundred years subsequent to the city being re-taken from the Spaniards. The festivities consisted of fireworks, jets du vin (fountains of wine) for the populace,
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