would man be without the unattainable?

Aristide pocketed his takings, struck his flag, dismantled his table,
and visited the shops of Salon in the interests of the Maison Hieropath.
The day's work over, he returned to inquire for his supposititious
offspring. The landlady, all smiles, presented him with a transmogrified
Jean, cleansed and powdered, arrayed in the smug panoply of bourgeois
babyhood. Shoes with a pompon adorned his feet, and a rakish cap
decorated with white satin ribbons crowned his head. He also wore an
embroidered frock and a pelisse trimmed with rabbit-fur. Jean grinned
and dribbled self-consciously, and showed his two little teeth to the
proudest father in the world. The landlady invited the happy parent into
her little dark parlour beyond the office, and there exhibited a parcel
containing garments and implements whose use was a mystery to Aristide.
She also demanded the greater part of another louis. Aristide began to
learn that fatherhood is expensive. But what did it matter?

After all, here was a babe equipped to face the exigencies of a
censorious world; in looks and apparel a credit to any father. As the
afternoon was fine, and as it seemed a pity to waste satin and
rabbit-fur on the murky interior of the hotel, Aristide borrowed a
perambulator from the landlady, and, joyous as a schoolboy, wheeled the
splendid infant through the sunny avenues of Salon.

That evening a bed was made up for the child in Aristide's room, which,
until its master retired for the night, was haunted by the landlady, the
chambermaids and all the kitchen wenches in the hotel. Aristide had to
turn them out and lock his door.

"This is excellent," said he, apostrophizing the thoroughly fed, washed,
and now sleeping child. "This is superb. As in every hotel there are
women, and as every woman thinks she can be a much better mother than I,
so in every hotel we visit we shall find a staff of trained and
enthusiastic nurses. Jean, you will live like a little _coq en pate_."

The night passed amid various excursions on the part of Aristide and
alarms on the part of Jean. Sometimes the child lay so still that
Aristide arose to see whether he was alive. Sometimes he gave such
proofs of vitality that Aristide, in terror lest he should awaken the
whole hotel, walked him about the room chanting lullabies. This was in
accordance with Jean's views on luxury. He "goo'd" with joy. When
Aristide put him back to bed he howled. Ari