n as I had been.

"I always prepare the Master's breakfast," said I jealously.

"It is the woman's duty."

"I don't care," I retorted.

She unclasped her hands, and coming forward on to her knees and bending
over me, brushed a strand of hair from my forehead.

"I will prepare yours too, Asticot," she said gently, "and you will see
how nice that will be. Men can't do these things where there is a woman
to look after them. It is not proper."

So, flattered in my masculinity, being ranked with Paragot as a "man," I
took a sultanesque view of the situation and graciously consented to her
proposed ministrations.

* * * * *

Paragot came back triumphant from Aix-les-Bains. Hadn't he told me he
had been inspired to go there? The man who played the violin at the
open-air Restaurant by the Lac de Bourget had just that day fallen ill.
The result, a week's engagement for Blanquette and himself.

"But, my child," said he, "you will have to suffer an inharmonious son
of Satan who makes a discordant Hades out of an execrable piano. He had
the impudence to tell me that he came from the Conservatoire. He, with
as much ear for music as an organ-grinder's monkey! He said to
me--Paragot--that I played the violin not too badly! I foresee a hideous
doom overhanging that young man, my children. Before the week is out I
will throw him into the maw of his soul-devouring piano. Ha! my
children, give me to drink, for I am thirsty."

Mindful of my dignity as a man, I glanced at Blanquette, who went into
the cafe obediently, while I stayed with my master. It was a sweet
moment. Paragot gripped me by the shoulder.

"My son, while Blanquette and I work, which Carlyle says is the noblest
function of man, but concerning which I have my own ideas, you cannot
live in red-shirted, pomaded and otherwise picturesque and studious
laziness. Look," he cried, pointing to a round, flat object wrapped in
paper which he had brought with him. "Do you know what that is?"

"That," said I, "is a cake."

"It is a tambourine," said my master.

* * * * *

The next day found us in the garden of the little lake-side restaurant
at Aix-les-Bains playing at lunch time. The young man at the piano whom
I had expected to see a fiend in human shape was a harmless consumptive
fellow who played with the sweet patience of a musical box. He shook
hands with me and called me "_cher collegue_," and before