er to read the gazette at Hoffman's, with his old cloak wrapped
closely round his shoulders and his big fox-skin cap pulled down over
his neck.

But in spite of that, often when he came in at ten o'clock, after we
had gone to bed, we heard him cough; he had dampened his feet. Then
Catherine would say, "He is coughing again, he thinks he is as young as
he was at twenty," and in the morning she did not hesitate to reproach
him.

"Monsieur Goulden," she would say, "you are not reasonable; you have an
ugly cold, and yet you go out every evening."

"Ah! my child, what would you have? I have got the habit of reading
the gazette, and it is stronger than I. I want to know what Benjamin
Constant and the rest of them say, it is like a second life to me and I
often think 'they ought to have spoken further of such or such a thing.
If Melchior Goulden had been there he would have opposed this or that,
and it would not have failed to produce a great effect.'"

Then he would laugh and shake his head and say:

"Every one thinks he has more wit and good sense than the others, but
Benjamin Constant always pleases me."

We could say nothing more, his desire to read the gazette was so great.
One day Catherine said to him:

"If you wish to hear the news, that is no reason why you should make
yourself sick, you have only to do as the old carpenter Carabin does,
he arranged last week with Father Hoffman, and he sends him the journal
every night at seven o'clock, after the others have read it, for which
he pays him three francs a month. In this way, without any trouble to
himself, Carabin knows everything that goes on, and his wife, old
Bevel, also; they sit by the fire and talk about all these things and
discuss them together, and that is what you should do."

"Ah! Catherine, that is an excellent idea, but--the three francs?"

"The three francs are nothing," said I, "the principal thing is not to
be sick, you cough very badly and that cannot go on."

These words, far from offending, pleased him, as they proved our
affection for him and that he ought to listen to us.

"Very well! we will try to arrange it as you wish, and the rather as
the cafe is filled with half-pay officers from morning till night, and
they pass the journals from one to the other so that sometimes we must
wait two hours before we can catch one. Yes, Catherine is right."

He went that very day to see Father Hoffman, so that after that,
Michel, one of the