over their polished surface.

Puffs of hot air, a smell of oil and of iron, accompanied by an
impalpable black dust, a dust that was as sharp as needles and sparkled
like diamonds,--all this Jack felt; but the peculiar characteristic
of the place was a certain jarring, something like the effort of
an enormous beast to shake off the chains that bound him in some
subterranean dungeon.

They had now reached an old chateau of the time of the League.

"Here we are," said Rondic; and addressing his brother, "Will you go up
with us?"

"Indeed I will; I am, besides, by no means unwilling to see 'the monkey'
once more, and to show him that I have become somebody and something."

He pulled down his velvet vest, and glanced at his yellow boots and
knapsack. Rondic made no remark, but seemed somewhat annoyed.

They passed through the low postern; on either side of the hall were
small and badly lighted rooms, where clerks were very busy writing. In
the inner room, a man with a stern and haughty face sat writing under a
high window.

"Ah, it is you, Pere Rondic!"

"Yes, sir; I come to present the new apprentice, and to thank you for--"

"This is the prodigy, then, is it? It seems, young man, that you have
an absolute talent for mechanics. But, Rondic, he does not look very
strong. Is he delicate?"

"No, sir; on the contrary, I have been assured that he is remarkably
robust."

"Remarkably," repeated Labassandre, coming forward, and, in reply to
the astonished glance of the Director, proceeded to say that he left the
manufactory six years before to join the opera in Paris.

"Ah, yes, I remember," answered the Director, coldly enough, rising at
the same time as if to indicate that the conversation was at an end.
"Take away your apprentice, Rondic, and try and make a good workman of
him. Under you he must turn out well."

The opera-singer, vexed at having produced no effect, went away somewhat
crestfallen. Rondic lingered and said a few words to his master, and
then the two men and the child descended the stairs together, each with
a different impression. Jack thought of the words "he does not look very
strong," while Labassandre digested his own mortification as he best
might. "Has anything gone wrong?" he suddenly asked his brother,--"the
Director seems even more surly now than in my day."

"No; he spoke to me of Chariot, our poor sister's son, who is giving us
a great deal of trouble."

"In what way?" asked the art