e two artists and was mounting the hill from which Ecouen, the steeple
of Mesnil, and the forests that surround that most beautiful region,
came in sight, when the gallop of a horse and the jingling of a vehicle
announced the coming of Pere Leger and the grandson of Czerni-Georges,
who were soon restored to their places in the coucou.

As Pierrotin drove down the narrow road to Moisselles, Georges, who had
so far not ceased to talk with the farmer of the beauty of the hostess
at Saint-Brice, suddenly exclaimed: "Upon my word, this landscape is not
so bad, great painter, is it?"

"Pooh! you who have seen the East and Spain can't really admire it."

"I've two cigars left! If no one objects, will you help me finish them,
Schinner? the little young man there seems to have found a whiff or two
enough for him."

Pere Leger and the count kept silence, which passed for consent.

Oscar, furious at being called a "little young man," remarked, as the
other two were lighting their cigars:

"I am not the aide-de-camp of Mina, monsieur, and I have not yet been to
the East, but I shall probably go there. The career to which my family
destine me will spare me, I trust, the annoyances of travelling in a
coucou before I reach your present age. When I once become a personage I
shall know how to maintain my station."

"'Et caetera punctum!'" crowed Mistigris, imitating the hoarse voice
of a young cock; which made Oscar's deliverance all the more absurd,
because he had just reached the age when the beard sprouts and the voice
breaks. "'What a chit for chat!'" added the rapin.

"Your family, young man, destine you to some career, do they?" said
Georges. "Might I ask what it is?"

"Diplomacy," replied Oscar.

Three bursts of laughter came from Mistigris, the great painter, and the
farmer. The count himself could not help smiling. Georges was perfectly
grave.

"By Allah!" he exclaimed, "I see nothing to laugh at in that. Though it
seems to me, young man, that your respectable mother is, at the present
moment, not exactly in the social sphere of an ambassadress. She carried
a handbag worthy of the utmost respect, and wore shoe-strings which--"

"My mother, monsieur!" exclaimed Oscar, in a tone of indignation. "That
was the person in charge of our household."

"'Our household' is a very aristocratic term," remarked the count.

"Kings have households," replied Oscar, proudly.

A look from Georges repressed the desire to laugh whi