nd no mistake; a bit more and
you'll see my splay-feet through these ones. Can't go marching on the
skin of my tongs, eh?"

An aeroplane booms overhead. We follow its evolutions with our faces
skyward, our necks twisted, our eyes watering at the piercing
brightness of the sky.

Lamuse declares to me, when we have brought our gaze back to earth,
"Those machines'll never become practical, never."

"How can you say that? Look at the progress they've made already, and
the speed of it."

"Yes, but they'll stop there. They'll never do any better, never."

This time I do not challenge the dull and obstinate denial that
ignorance opposes to the promise of progress, and I let my big comrade
alone in his stubborn belief that the wonderful effort of science and
industry has been suddenly cut short.

Having thus begun to reveal to me his inmost thoughts, Lamuse
continues. Coming nearer and lowering his head, he says to me, "You
know she's here--Eudoxie?"

"Ah!" said I.

"Yes, old chap. You never notice anything, you don't, but I noticed,"
and Lamuse smiles at me indulgently. "Now, do you catch on? If she's
come here, it's because we interest her, eh? She's followed us for one
of us, and don't you forget it."

He gets going again. "My boy, d'you want to know what I say? She's come
after me."

"Are you sure of it, old chap?"

"Yes," says the ox-man, in a hollow voice. "First, I want her. Then,
twice, old man, I've found her exactly in my path, in mine, d'you
understand? You may tell me that she ran away; that's because she's
timid, that, yes--"

He stopped dead in the middle of the street and looked straight at me.
The heavy face, greasily moist on the cheeks and nose, was serious. His
rotund fist went up to the dark yellow mustache, so carefully pointed,
and smoothed it tenderly. Then he continued to lay bare his heart to me
"I want her; but, you know, I shall marry her all right, I shall. She's
called Eudoxie Dumail. At first, I wasn't thinking of marrying her. But
since I've got to know her family name, it seems to me that it's
different, and I should get on all right. Ah, nom de Dieu! She's so
pretty, that woman! And it's not only that she's pretty--ah!"

The huge child was overflowing with sentiment and emotion, and trying
to make them speak to me. "Ah, my boy, there are times when I've just
got to hold myself back with a hook," came the strained and gloomy
tones, while the blood flushed to the fleshy parts of