her. But I am not an idler. I try to be,
but I can't manage it; it goes against the grain. My business habits are
too deep-seated. Then, I haven't any house to call my own, or anything
in the way of a family. My sisters are five thousand miles away, my
mother died when I was a youngster, and I haven't any wife; I wish I
had! So, you see, I don't exactly know what to do with myself. I am not
fond of books, as you are, sir, and I get tired of dining out and going
to the opera. I miss my business activity. You see, I began to earn my
living when I was almost a baby, and until a few months ago I have never
had my hand off the plow. Elegant leisure comes hard."

This speech was followed by a profound silence of some moments, on the
part of Newman's entertainers. Valentin stood looking at him fixedly,
with his hands in his pockets, and then he slowly, with a half-sidling
motion, went out of the door. The marquis continued to draw on his
gloves and to smile benignantly.

"You began to earn your living when you were a mere baby?" said the
marquise.

"Hardly more--a small boy."

"You say you are not fond of books," said M. de Bellegarde; "but
you must do yourself the justice to remember that your studies were
interrupted early."

"That is very true; on my tenth birthday I stopped going to school. I
thought it was a grand way to keep it. But I picked up some information
afterwards," said Newman, reassuringly.

"You have some sisters?" asked old Madame de Bellegarde.

"Yes, two sisters. Splendid women!"

"I hope that for them the hardships of life commenced less early."

"They married very early, if you call that a hardship, as girls do in
our Western country. One of them is married to the owner of the largest
india-rubber house in the West."

"Ah, you make houses also of india-rubber?" inquired the marquise.

"You can stretch them as your family increases," said young Madame de
Bellegarde, who was muffling herself in a long white shawl.

Newman indulged in a burst of hilarity, and explained that the house in
which his brother-in-law lived was a large wooden structure, but that he
manufactured and sold india-rubber on a colossal scale.

"My children have some little india-rubber shoes which they put on
when they go to play in the Tuileries in damp weather," said the young
marquise. "I wonder whether your brother-in-law made them."

"Very likely," said Newman; "if he did, you may be very sure they are
well made."