thing better than a streetwalker.--You are only a
trollop.--You are a regular strumpet.' And so on, and so on; a sailor
could not have said more.

"Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, and turned round. It was the other
one, the fat woman, who had fallen onto my wife with her parasol.
_Whack! whack_! Melie got two of them, but she was furious, and she hits
hard when she is in a rage, so she caught the fat woman by the hair and
then, _thump, thump_, and slaps in the face rained down like ripe plums.
I should have let them go on; women among themselves; men among
themselves; it does not do to mix the blows, but the little man in the
linen jacket jumped up like a devil and was going to rush at my wife.
Ah! no, no, not that my friend! I caught the gentleman with the end of
my fist, and _crash, crash_, one on the nose, the other in the stomach.
He threw up his arms and legs and fell on his back into the river, just
into the hole.

"I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le President, if
I had had the time. But unfortunately the fat woman got the better of
it, and she was drubbing Melie terribly. I know that I ought not to have
assisted her while the man was drinking his fill, but I never thought
that he would drown, and said to myself: 'Bah, it will cool him.'

"I therefore ran up to the women to separate them, and all I received
was scratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me
five minutes, and perhaps ten to separate those two viragoes, and when I
turned round, there was nothing more to be seen, and the water was as
smooth as a lake, while the others yonder kept shouting: 'Fish him out!'
and though it was all very well to say that, I cannot swim and still
less dive!

"At last the man from the dam came, and two gentlemen with boat hooks,
but it had taken over a quarter of an hour. He was found at the bottom
of the hole in eight feet of water, as I have said, but he had got it,
the poor little man in his linen suit! There are the facts, such as I
have sworn to. I am innocent, on my honor."

* * * * *

The witnesses having deposed to the same effect, the accused was
acquitted.

SAVED

The little Marquise de Rennedon came rushing in like a ball smashing a
window, and she began to laugh before she spoke, to laugh until she
cried, like she had done a month previously, when she had told her
friend that she had betrayed the marquis in order to have