lessened to fifty-five; or, only a trifle more than one hundred per cent.
But the colonel was firm, and, for once, her cupidity was compelled to
succumb. The money was paid, and I became the vassal of Colonel
Silky; a titular soldier, but a traveling trader, who never lost sight of the
main chance either in his campaigns, his journeys, or his pleasures.

To own the truth, Colonel Silky was delighted with me. No girl could be
a better judge of the ARTICLE, and all his cultivated taste ran into the
admiration of GOODS. I was examined with the closest scrutiny; my
merits were inwardly applauded, and my demerits pronounced to be
absolutely none. In short, I was flattered; for, it must be confessed, the
commendation of even a fool is grateful. So far from placing me in a
trunk, or a drawer, the colonel actually put me in his pocket, though
duly enveloped and with great care, and for some time I trembled in
every delicate fibre, lest, in a moment of forgetfulness, he might use me.
But my new master had no such intention. His object in taking me out
was to consult a sort of court commissionaire, with whom he had
established certain relations, and that, too, at some little cost, on the
propriety of using me himself that evening at the chateau of the King of
the French. Fortunately, his monitress, though by no means of the purest
water, knew better than to suffer her eleve to commit so gross a
blunder, and I escaped the calamity of making my first appearance at
court under the auspices of such a patron.

{eleve = pupil}

There was a moment, too, when the colonel thought of presenting me to
Madame de Dolomien, by the way of assuring his favor in the royal
circle, but when he came to count up the money he should lose in the
way of profits, this idea became painful, and it was abandoned. As