as so extravagantly monstrous--'

'Look here,' interrupted Casimir; 'was it you or Stasie?'

'Certainly not,' answered the Doctor.

'Very well; then it was the boy. Say no more about it,' said the brother-
in-law, and he produced his cigar-case.

'I will say this much more,' returned Desprez: 'if that boy came and told
me so himself, I should not believe him; and if I did believe him, so
implicit is my trust, I should conclude that he had acted for the best.'

'Well, well,' said Casimir, indulgently. 'Have you a light? I must be
going. And by the way, I wish you would let me sell your Turks for you.
I always told you, it meant smash. I tell you so again. Indeed, it was
partly that that brought me down. You never acknowledge my letters--a
most unpardonable habit.'

'My good brother,' replied the Doctor blandly, 'I have never denied your
ability in business; but I can perceive your limitations.'

'Egad, my friend, I can return the compliment,' observed the man of
business. 'Your limitation is to be downright irrational.'

'Observe the relative position,' returned the Doctor with a smile. 'It
is your attitude to believe through thick and thin in one man's
judgment--your own. I follow the same opinion, but critically and with
open eyes. Which is the more irrational?--I leave it to yourself.'

'O, my dear fellow!' cried Casimir, 'stick to your Turks, stick to your
stable-boy, go to the devil in general in your own way and be done with
it. But don't ratiocinate with me--I cannot bear it. And so, ta-ta. I
might as well have stayed away for any good I've done. Say good-bye from
me to Stasie, and to the sullen hang-dog of a stable-boy, if you insist
on it; I'm off.'

And Casimir departed. The Doctor, that night, dissected his character
before Anastasie. 'One thing, my beautiful,' he said, 'he has learned
one thing from his lifelong acquaintance with your husband: the word
_ratiocinate_. It shines in his vocabulary, like a jewel in a muck-heap.
And, even so, he continually misapplies it. For you must have observed
he uses it as a sort of taunt, in the sense of to _ergotise_, implying,
as it were--the poor, dear fellow!--a vein of sophistry. As for his
cruelty to Jean-Marie, it must be forgiven him--it is not his nature, it
is the nature of his life. A man who deals with money, my dear, is a man
lost.'

With Jean-Marie the process of reconciliation had been somewhat slow. At
first he was inconsola