idn't know it. Poor woman!"

"I don't understand you! You knew my mother?"

"Ingrate!"

"Why, you're an amusing fellow! But your parents were invited to the
funeral, were they not?"

"Whose parents?"

"Your father and mother!"

"Eh! What's this you're cackling to me about? My mother was dead before
yours was born!"

"Your mother dead?"

"Yes, certainly; in '89!"

"What! Wasn't it your mother who sent you here?"

"Monster! It was my fatherly heart that brought me!"

"Fatherly heart?---- Why, then you're not young Jamin, who has been
cutting up didoes in the capital, and has been sent to Nancy to go
through the Agricultural School?"

The Colonel answered with the voice of Jupiter tonans:

"I am Fougas!"

"Very well!"

"If Nature says nothing to you in my behalf, ungrateful son, question
the spirit of your mother!"

"Upon my soul, sir," cried the Counsellor, "we can play at cross
purposes a good while! Sit down there, if you please, and tell me your
business--Marie, take away the children."

Fougas did not require any urging. He detailed the romance of his life,
without omitting anything, but with many delicate touches for the filial
ears of M. Langevin. The Counsellor heard him patiently, with an
appearance of perfect disinterestedness.

"Monsieur," said he, at last, "at first I took you for a madman; but now
I remember that the newspapers have contained some scraps of your
history, and I see that you are the victim of a mistake. I am not
forty-six years old, but thirty-four. My mother's name was not
Clementine Pichon, but Marie Herval. She was not born at Nancy, but at
Vannes, and she was but seven years old in 1813. Nevertheless, I am
happy to make your acquaintance."

"Ah! you're not my son!" replied Fougas, angrily. "Very well! So much
the worse for you! No one seems to want a father of the name of Fougas!
As for sons by the name of Langevin, one only has to stoop to pick them
up. I know where to find one who is not a Counsellor of the Prefecture,
it is true, and who does not put on a laced coat to go to mass, but who
has an honest and simple heart, and is named Pierre, just like me! But,
I beg your pardon, when one shows gentlemen the door, one ought at least
to return what belongs to them."

"I don't prevent your collecting the bon-bons which my children have
scattered over the floor."

"Yes, I'm talking about bon-bons with a vengeance! My million, sir!"

"What million?"

"Your broth