when Monsieur Hochon himself comes upon the scene.

At this particular moment Francois and Baruch (we will call them by
their Christian names for the sake of clearness) were sitting, one on

each side of Max, at the middle of a table that was rather ill lighted
by the fuliginous gleams of four tallow candles of eight to the pound.

A dozen to fifteen bottles of various wines had just been drunk, for
only eleven of the Knights were present. Baruch--whose name indicates

pretty clearly that Calvinism still kept some hold on Issoudun--said
to Max, as the wine was beginning to unloose all tongues,--

"You are threatened in your stronghold."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Max.

"Why, my grandmother has had a letter from Madame Bridau, who is her
goddaughter, saying that she and her son are coming here. My

grandmother has been getting two rooms ready for them."
"What's that to me?" said Max, taking up his glass and swallowing the

contents at a gulp with a comic gesture.
Max was then thirty-four years old. A candle standing near him threw a

gleam upon his soldierly face, lit up his brow, and brought out
admirably his clear skin, his ardent eyes, his black and slightly

curling hair, which had the brilliancy of jet. The hair grew
vigorously upward from the forehead and temples, sharply defining

those five black tongues which our ancestors used to call the "five
points." Notwithstanding this abruptcontrast of black and white,

Max's face was very sweet, owing its charm to an outline like that
which Raphael gave to the faces of his Madonnas, and to a well-cut

mouth whose lips smiled graciously, giving an expression of
countenance which Max had made distinctively his own. The rich

coloring which blooms on a Berrichon cheek added still further to his
look of kindly good-humor. When he laughed heartily, he showed thirty-

two teeth worthy of the mouth of a pretty woman. In height about five
feet six inches, the young man was admirably well-proportioned,--

neither too stout nor yet too thin. His hands, carefully kept, were
white and rather handsome; but his feet recalled the suburb and the

foot-soldier of the Empire. Max would certainly have made a good
general of division; he had shoulders that were worth a fortune to a

marshal of France, and a breast broad enough to wear all the orders of
Europe. Every movement betrayed intelligence; born with grace and

charm, like nearly all the children of love, the noble blood of his
real father came out in him.

"Don't you know, Max," cried the son of a former surgeon-major named
Goddet--now the best doctor in the town--from the other end of the

table, "that Madame Hochon's goddaughter is the sister of Rouget? If
she is coming here with her son, no doubt she means to make sure of

getting the property when he dies, and then--good-by to your harvest!"
Max frowned. Then, with a look which ran from one face to another all

round the table, he watched the effect of this announcement on the
minds of those present, and again replied,--

"What's that to me?"
"But," said Francois, "I should think that if old Rouget revoked his

will,--in case he has made one in favor of the Rabouilleuse--"
Here Max cut short his henchman's speech. "I've stopped the mouths of

people who have dared to meddle with you, my dear Francois," he said;
"and this is the way you pay your debts? You use a contemptuous

nickname in speaking of a woman to whom I am known to be attached."
Max had never before said as much as this about his relations with the

person to whom Francois had just applied a name under which she was
known at Issoudun. The late prisoner at Cabrera--the major of the

grenadiers of the Guard--knew enough of what honor was to judge
rightly as to the causes of the disesteem in which society held him.

He had therefore never allowed any one, no matter who, to speak to him
on the subject of Mademoiselle Flore Brazier, the servant-mistress of

Jean-Jacques Rouget, so energetically termed a "slut" by the
respectable Madame Hochon. Everybody knew it was too ticklish a

subject with Max, ever to speak of it unless he began it; and hitherto
he had never begun it. To risk his anger or irritate him was

altogether too dangerous; so that even his best friends had never
joked him about the Rabouilleuse. When they talked of his liaison with

the girl before Major Potel and Captain Renard, with whom he lived on
intimate terms, Potel would reply,--

"If he is the natural brother of Jean-Jacques Rouget where else would
you have him live?"

"Besides, after all," added Captain Renard, "the girl is a worthless
piece, and if Max does live with her where's the harm?"

After this merited snub, Francois could not at once catch up the
thread of his ideas; but he was still less able to do so when Max said

to him, gently,--
"Go on."

"Faith, no!" cried Francois.
"You needn't get angry, Max," said young Goddet; "didn't we agree to

talk freely to each other at Mere Cognette's? Shouldn't we all be
mortal enemies if we remembered outside what is said, or thought, or

done here? All the town calls Flore Brazier the Rabouilleuse; and if
Francois did happen to let the nickname slip out, is that a crime

against the Order of Idleness?"
"No," said Max, "but against our personal friendship. However, I

thought better of it; I recollected we were in session, and that was
why I said, 'Go on.'"

A deep silence followed. The pause became so embarrassing for the
whole company that Max broke it by exclaiming:--

"I'll go on for him," [sensation] "--for all of you," [amazement]
"--and tell you what you are thinking" [profound sensation]. "You

think that Flore, the Rabouilleuse, La Brazier, the housekeeper of
Pere Rouget,--for they call him so, that old bachelor, who can never

have any children!--you think, I say, that that woman supplies all my
wants ever since I came back to Issoudun. If I am able to throw three

hundred francs a month to the dogs, and treat you to suppers,--as I do
to-night,--and lend money to all of you, you think I get the gold out

of Mademoiselle Flore Brazier's purse? Well, yes" [profound
sensation]. "Yes, ten thousand times yes! Yes, Mademoiselle Brazier is

aiming straight for the old man's property."
"She gets it from father to son," observed Goddet, in his corner.

"You think," continued Max, smiling at Goddet's speech, "that I intend
to marry Flore when Pere Rouget dies, and so this sister and her son,

of whom I hear to-night for the first time, will endanger my future?"
"That's just it," cried Francois.

"That is what every one thinks who is sitting round this table," said
Baruch.

"Well, don't be uneasy, friends," answered Max. "Forewarned is
forearmed! Now then, I address the Knights of Idleness. If, to get rid

of these Parisians I need the help of the Order, will you lend me a
hand? Oh! within the limits we have marked out for our fooleries," he

added hastily, perceiving a general hesitation. "Do you suppose I want
to kill them,--poison them? Thank God I'm not an idiot. Besides, if

the Bridaus succeed, and Flore has nothing but what she stands in, I
should be satisfied; do you understand that? I love her enough to

prefer her to Mademoiselle Fichet,--if Mademoiselle Fichet would have
me."

Mademoiselle Fichet was the richest heiress in Issoudun, and the hand
of the daughter counted for much in the reported passion of the

younger Goddet for the mother. Frankness of speech is a pearl of such
price that all the Knights rose to their feet as one man.

"You are a fine fellow, Max!"
"Well said, Max; we'll stand by you!"

"A fig for the Bridaus!"
"We'll bridle them!"

"After all, it is only three swains to a shepherdess."
"The deuce! Pere Lousteau loved Madame Rouget; isn't it better to love