received his full share of their blame. Then, as invariably happens in
the company of a medical man, Caravan began to enlarge on the chapter of
illness, as, in that manner, he hoped to obtain a little gratuitous
advice, if he was careful not to show his book. His mother had been
causing him no little anxiety for some time; she had frequent and
prolonged fainting fits, and, although she was ninety, she would not
take care of herself.

Caravan grew quite tender-hearted when he mentioned her great age,
and more than once asked Doctor Chenet, emphasizing the word
_doctor_--although he had no right to the title, being only an _Officier
de Sante_, and, as such, not fully qualified--whether he had often met
anyone as old as that. And he rubbed his hands with pleasure; not,
perhaps, that he cared very much about seeing the good woman last for
ever here on earth, but because the long duration of his mother's life
was, as it were, an earnest of old age for himself, and he continued:

"Oh! In my family, we last long, and I am sure that, unless I meet with
an accident, I shall not die until I am very old."

The _medico_ looked at him with pity, and glanced for a moment at his
neighbor's red face, his short, thick neck, his "corporation," as Chenet
called it to himself, that hung down between two flaccid, fat legs, and
his apoplectic rotundity of the old, flabby official, and, lifting the
white Panama hat which he wore, from his head, he said, with a snigger:--

"I am not so sure of that, old fellow; your mother is as tough as nails,
and I should say that your life is not a very good one."

This rather upset Caravan, who did not speak again until the tram put
them down at their destination, where the two friends got out, and Chenet
asked his friend to have a glass of vermouth at the _Cafe du Globe_,
opposite, which both of them were in the habit of frequenting. The
proprietor, who was a friend of theirs, held out two fingers to them,
which they shook across the bottles on the counter, and then they joined
three of their friends, who were playing at dominoes, and who had been
there since midday. They exchanged cordial greetings, with the usual
inquiries:--"Anything fresh?" and then the three players continued their
game, and held out their hands without looking up, when the others wished
them "Good-night," and then they both went home to dinner.

Caravan lived in a small, two-storied house in Courbevoie, near where
the roads m