"I can tell you," she replied. "He wants me and I am very willing.
There!"

Bru began to cry, and she continued:

"You are a good for nothing."

And she went off with the lad, while Bru seized his crook, seeing which
the young fellow raised his gun.

"Seize him! seize him!" the shepherd shouted, urging on his dogs, while
the other had already got his finger on the trigger to fire at them. But
_La Morillonne_ pushed down the muzzle and called out:

"Here, dogs! here! Prr, prr, my beauties!"

And the three dogs rushed up to her, licked her hands and frisked about
as they followed her, while she called to the shepherd from the distance:

"You see, Bru, they are not at all jealous!"

And then, with a short and evil laugh, she added:

"They are my property now."

WAITER, A "BOCK"[13]

[Footnote 13: A French imitation of German Lager Beer.]

Why did I enter, on this particular evening, a certain beer shop? I
cannot explain it. It was bitterly cold. A fine rain, a watery dust
floated about, which enshrouded the gas jets in a transparent fog, made
the pavements that passed under the shadow of the shop fronts glitter,
and which at once exhibited the soft slush and the soiled feet of the
passers-by.

I was going nowhere in particular; was simply having a short walk after
dinner. I had passed the Credit Lyonnais, the Rue Vivienne, besides
several other streets. Thereupon, I suddenly descried a large public
house, which was more than half full. I walked inside, with no object in
view. I was not the least thirsty.

By a searching sweep of the eye I sought out a place where I would not be
too much crowded, and so I went and sat down by the side of a man who
seemed to me to be old, and who smoked a halfpenny clay pipe, which had
become as black as coal. From six to eight beer saucers were piled up on
the table in front of him, indicating the number of "bocks" he had
already absorbed. With the same sweep of the eye I had recognized a
"regular toper," one of those frequenters of beer-houses, who come in the
morning as soon as the place is open, and only go way in the evening when
it is about to close. He was dirty, bald to about the middle of the
cranium, while his long, powder and salt, gray hair, fell over the neck
of his frock coat. His clothes, much too large for him, appeared to have
been made for him at a time when he carried a great stomach. One could
guess that the pantaloons were not suspended from brac