sat down by M. Mennesson and who was at that moment holding a whispered conversation with him, interspersed with guffaws of laughter. Thanks to the extremely delicate hearing with which I was gifted by nature, and which I had cultivated during hunting, I thought I could distinguish my own name; but I supposed I had not heard correctly, not flattering myself that two such grave personages could be doing me the honour of talking about me. Unluckily for my pride,—and I have indicated to what a pitch this feeling was developed in me, a height that would have been absurd if it had not been painful,—unluckily for my pride, then, I was not kept long in doubt that the discussion was about me.

I have said that M. Mennesson was very fond of a joke and very witty; wherever he could find a joke he would fasten upon it, no matter whether it happened to concern a woman's virtue or a man's reputation. When the frenzy of joking seized him he gave himself up to it unreservedly, heart and soul. Finding nothing, probably, on this day, better to chew, he set upon me; the pasture was poor, but it was far better to crack my sorry bones than to chew at nothing or gulp only the air. After several of those whispered remarks, then, and bursts of stifled laughter, which had disturbed my equanimity, M. Mennesson raised his voice.

"My dear friend," he said, "it is a chapter out of the Diable boiteux re-discovered and still unpublished, which I mean to have printed the next time I go to Paris, to complete Lesage's work."

"Ah! tell it me," Lebègue replied; "I will tell it to my wife, who will pass it on to her sisters, who will tell it to everybody; then our publication will be disposed of in advance."

M. Mennesson began:—

"There was once upon a time at Salamanca a scholar who was descended from a race of Arabs and who was called Samud.[1] He was still so young that if anyone had pulled his nose, milk would most certainly have come out: this did not prevent him from being absurd enough to fancy himself a man; perhaps also—for, to be fair, we must say all there is to say—this ridiculous fancy would not have entered his head had not that happened which we are about to relate."

It may be imagined that I was listening attentively. I had recognised from the very first words that I was undoubtedly the person in question, and I wondered uneasily where the story was going to lead after this beginning—a beginning which, so far as I was concerned, I found more impertinent than graphic.

M. Mennesson went on, and I listened with my ears open, my pen idle in my hand.

"On the day of the feast of Whitsuntide in the year ... I cannot say the exact date of the year, but, any way, it was on the day of the feast of Whitsuntide, which is also the town's feast-time, two beautiful senoras arrived from Madrid and put up at the house of a worthy canon who was the uncle of one of these ladies. It chanced that this canon was the same with whom Samud had learnt the bit of Latin he knew, and as the two lovely Madrid ladies wanted a cavalier who would not put their virtue to the blush, the canon cast his eyes on his pupil, and requested him to place both his arms at the disposal of the new arrivals, to show them the park of Salamanca, which is very wide, very beautiful, and belongs to the Duke of Rodelnas.[2] I will not dwell on the adventures of the first day, beyond just briefly touching upon two events: the first was the meeting between our scholar and an elegant senor from Madrid, who was noticed at once by the Sefiora Lorenza, with whom our scholar was walking arm in arm, dressed, as people of the provinces often are, about a decade behind the fashions of the capital. This young gallant was called Audim. The second was a most serious accident, which happened to the scholar's breeches, just when, in order to give the fair Lorenza a proof of his agility, he had leaped across a ditch fourteen feet wide."

It can be imagined what I suffered as I listened to this secondhand recital of my lovelorn tribulations, which, according to his method of procedure, would not stop short at the two misadventures of the first day. M. Mennesson continued:—

"The beautiful Lorenza was specially impressed by the young gallant's get-up. In complete contrast to the scholar, who was muffled up in a Gothic costume borrowed from the wardrobe of his ancestors, Señor Audim was dressed in the latest fashion, in tight-fitting breeches, ending in charming little heart-shaped shoes, and a dark-coloured doublet turned out by one of the best tailors in Madrid. The scholar had not been unconscious of the particular notice his companion had paid to the handsome Audim's attire, and as it began to dawn on him what influence a coat of a certain cut or trousers of a special shade of colour might have upon a woman, he decided during the night following the fête to please Lorenza no matter at what price, and to have a suit made exactly like the one worn by the young man who seemed destined by fate to become his rival. The most vital part of the costume, and moreover the most expensive, was in the matter of the boots. So he turned his attention to them first of all. On the opposite side of the square where Samud's mother lived, a square called the place de la Fontaine, was the best boot-maker in the town: he had always shod the scholar, but hitherto he had only made shoes for him, the lad's tender years not having put the idea into anyone's head, not even into his own, that he could wear any other covering for his feet than shoes or sandals without risking a too close resemblance to Perrault's venerable Puss in Boots. Great therefore was M. Landereau's[3] surprise when his customer came and boldly asked the price of a pair of boots. He stared at Samud.

'A pair of boots?' he asked. 'For whom?'

'Why, for myself,' the scholar proudly replied.

'Has your mother given you leave to order boots?' 'Yes.'

"The bootmaker shook his head dubiously: he knew Samud's mother was not well off and that it would be foolish of her to allow such extravagance in her son.

'Boots are dear,' he said.

'That does not matter. How much are they?'

'They would cost you exactly four dollars.'

'Good.... Take my measure.'

'I have told you I can do nothing without leave from your mother.'

'I will see you have it.'

"Returning home, the scholar ventured to ask for a pair of boots. The request struck Samud's mother as so extraordinary that she made him repeat his inquiry twice. It was all the more strange as it was the first time the scholar had troubled about his dress. When he was ten they had the greatest difficulty in the world to get him to give up a long pinafore of figured cotton, which he considered far more comfortable than all the breeches and all the doublets on earth; then, from the age of ten to the age of fifteen, he had worn with indifference any garments his mother had thought good to put him in, always preferring dirty and old ones to clean and new, because in them he was allowed to go out in all weathers and to roll about in all kinds of places. So the demand for a pair of boots seemed to his poor mother altogether most unprecedented, and she was alarmed for her son's reason.

'A pair of boots!' she