While at breakfast the second morning after his arrival he was warmly greeted by a stranger, who took his hand and said: “I am truly delighted to see you, Monsieur Quentineau! When did you arrive?”
Scipion gently informed the man that he was not Quentineau, but Scipion Desruelles.
The stranger with great violence said that the dodge wouldn’t go down there! Next thing he’d want to repudiate that bill of $725 he owed Marais & Hughes.
Scipion said he had only been in the city a day, had never seen the stranger before, nor knew he who or what Marais & Hughes were—consequently could not possibly owe them or anybody else anything.
An hour later Scipion was arrested on a warrant taken out by Marais & Hughes, liquor dealers in Canal street, against Pierre Quentineau, an absconding debtor.
Scipion Desruelles, alias Quentineau, was cast into prison. He found a lawyer, and with great difficulty, and at the cost of half his money, proved that he was not Quentineau, but Scipion Desruelles, a passenger aboard the brig Braganza, of Bordeaux. But for the captain he would have been convicted, for several witnesses swore that he was Quentineau.
As soon as Scipion was released he went to the levee and embarked on a steamer for Memphis, intending to make his way thence by rail to New York.
At Memphis he was misdirected, enticed into a low groggery under the bluffs and robbed of every cent he had left. Scipion found his way to the mayor of the city, who promised to write to the French Consul at New Orleans about it and to send the police in search of the thieves.
Scipion meantime wrote to Paris to Madame for a remittance, and went about in search of a situation. A cotton broker gave him some correspondence with Louisiana Creole planters to look after, and he was thus enabled to earn enough to eat. But no answer nor remittance came from Madame, and our poor exile could not make money enough to take him home. At last he wrote to his cousin in Martinique, stating his circumstances, and received shortly after in reply a draft for 2,500 francs.
Scipion immediately bought himself some clothes and necessaries, took the cars and started for New York.