ar; "he deals in them wholesale.
Mother says it's a famous trade. He has a cigar-holder with an
amber mouthpiece and a woman all naked carved in meerschaum.
Just think, the other day he came and told mother his wife was
making him atrocious scenes."

Madame Ewans put in her head at the half-open door:

"Come along," she said, and they set out. No sooner were they
in the street than a man, who was smoking, greeted Madame with
a friendly wave of his gloved hand. She muttered between her
teeth:

"Shall we never be done with them?"

The man began in a guttural voice:

"I was just going to your place, my dear, to offer you a box of
Turkish cigarettes. But I see you are taking a boarding-school
out for a walk--a regular boarding-school, 'pon my word! You
take pupils, eh? I congratulate you. Make men of 'em, my dear,
make men of 'em."

Madame Ewans frowned and replied with a curl of the lips:

"I am with my son and one of my son's friends."

The gentleman threw a careless look at one of the lads--Jean Servien
as it happened.

"Capital, capital!" he exclaimed. "Is that one your son?"

"Not he, indeed!" she cried hotly.

Jean felt he was looked down upon, and as she laid her hand on
her son's shoulder with a proud gesture, he could not help noticing
his schoolfellow's easy air and elegant costume, at the same time
casting a glance of disgust at his own jacket, which had been
cut down for him by his aunt out of an overcoat of his father's.

"Shall we be honoured by your presence to-night at the _Bouffes_?"
asked the gentleman.

"No!" replied Madame Ewans, and pushed the two children forward
with the tip of her sunshade.

Stepping out gaily, they soon arrive under the chestnuts of the
Tuileries, cross the bridge, then down the river-bank, over the
shaky gangway, and so on to the steamer pontoon.

Now they are aboard the boat, which exhales a strong, healthy
smell of tar under the hot sun. The long grey walls of the
embankments slip by, to be succeeded presently by wooded slopes.

Saint-Cloud! The moment the ropes are made fast, Madame Ewans
springs on to the landing-stage and makes straight for the shrilling
of the clarinettes and thunder of the big drums, steering her
little charges through the press with the handle of her sunshade.

Jean was mightily surprised when Madame Ewans made him "try his
luck" in a lottery. He had before now gone with his aunt to sundry
suburban fairs, but she had always dissuaded