Viewing page 59 of 143

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

HIS BOTTLES.

St. Amar was contradictory in his attitude towards humanity. In Mentons, when out driving with my mother he would persist in taking off his hat to all and sundry. It sufficed that the carriage slowed down for the hat to come off; the douaniers lolling on the benches at the gates of the chateau came in for an extra amount of these genial salutations. But if he showed excessive politeness on such occasions, on the others he became the avowed enemy of mankind.

One of his favorite pastimes, when he could escape my vigilance, was to throw bottles from a balcony on the heads of the passers-by. An incident of this kind in a terminus hotel in Paris caused the arrival of the police. My brother was caught red-handed, his pockets bulging with bottles. Only the evident state of his mind averted proceedings against him.