by the nape of the
neck like a rabbit, and exclaimed, heedless of his protestations, his
terrified, stammering entreaties:

"Yes, yes, I'll give you satisfaction, you miserable scoundrel. But
first I propose to do to you what we do to dirty beasts so that they
sha'n't come back again."

And he began to rub him, to scrub his face mercilessly with his
newspaper, which he held like a _tampon_ and with which he choked and
blinded him and made great raw spots where the paint bled. They dragged
him from his hands, purple and breathless. If he had worked himself up a
little more, he would have killed him.

The scuffle at an end, the Nabob pulled down his sleeves, which had
risen to his elbows, smoothed his rumpled linen, picked up his satchel
from which the papers relating to the Sarigue election had scattered as
far as the gutter, and replied to the police officers, who asked him his
name in order to prepare their report: "Bernard Jansoulet, Deputy for
Corsica."

A public man!

Not until then did he remember that he was one. Who would have suspected
it, to see him thus, out of breath and bareheaded, like a porter after a
street fight, under the inquisitive, coldly contemptuous glances of the
slowly dispersing crowd?

XVII.

THE APPARITION.

If you wish for sincere, straightforward passion, if you wish for
effusive demonstrations of affection, laughter, the laughter of great
happiness, which differs from tears only in a very slight movement of
the mouth, if you wish for the fascinating folly of youth illumined by
bright eyes, so transparent that you can look to the very bottom of the
soul, there are all of those to be seen this Sunday morning in a house
that you know, a new house on the outskirts of the old faubourg. The
show-case on the ground-floor is more brilliant than usual. The signs
over the door dance about more airily than ever, and through the open
windows issue joyous cries, a soaring heavenward of happiness.

"Accepted, it's accepted! Oh! what luck! Henriette, Elise, come, come!
M. Maranne's play is accepted."

Andre has known the news since yesterday. Cardailhac, the manager of the
Nouveautes, sent for him to inform him that his play would be put in
rehearsal at once and produced next month. They passed the evening
discussing the stage setting, the distribution of parts; and, as it was
too late to knock at his neighbors' door when he returned from the
theatre, he waited for morning with fever