ured me would cause roars of laughter
among my friends: there was no pleasanter way, he said, of entertaining
an evening company than suddenly to display one of these creatures,
and make the ladies scream and run about. He presented me, at different
times, with a gyroscope, a kilogramme-weight and a lobster with a blue
silk lining.

As time ran on, and, in the early winter, I began practice, Sorel
brought me a little business. He had to sue two Graeco-Roman wrestlers
for board and attach their box-office receipts. Some Frenchman had heard
of a little legacy left him in the Calvados, and wanted me to look up
the matter.

Fidele, too, came to me every quarter-day, to make oath before me to his
pension certificate, and stopped and made a short call. He had little to
say about France. His great romance had been the war, although it
seemed to have fused itself into a hazy, high-colored dream of danger,
excitement, suffering, and generous devotion. Tears always rose in his
eyes when he spoke of "_la republique?_"

In those first days of practice, anything by the name of law business
wore a halo, and I used to encourage Sorel's calls, partly for this
reason and partly for practice in talking French with a common man. I
hoped to go to France some day, and I wanted to be able then to talk not
only with the grammatical, but with the dear people who say, "I guess
likely," and "How be you?" in French.

Moreover, Sorel was rather amusing. He was something of a humorist. Once
he came to tell me, excitedly, that Auguste was learning music: "_Il
touche au violon,--mais_--'e play so _bien!_" And Sorel's eyes opened in
wonder at the boy's quickness.

"Who teaches him?" I asked. "Some Frenchman who plays in the theatre?"

"_Mais_, no," Sorel replied, with a broad drollery in his eye; "_un
professeur d'occasion!_" It was a ruined music-teacher, engaged now
in selling balloons from Madeira Place, who was the "_professeur
d'occasion_."

One day Sorel appeared with a great story to tell. Auguste, it seemed,
had wearied of home, and was determined to go to sea. Nothing could
deter him. Whereupon M. Sorel had hit upon a stratagem. He had hunted
up, somewhere along the wharves, two French sailors with conversational
powers, and had retained them to stay at his house for two or three
days, as chance comers. It was inevitable that Auguste should ply them
with eager questions,--and they knew their part.

As Sorel, entering into the situat