tenderly. "In France it is the custom
to fight a duel in the circumstances to which you allude. French Cats
have recourse to their claws and not to their gold."

"Poor country," I said to him, "and why does it send beasts so denuded
of capital to the foreign embassies?"

"That's simple enough," said Brisquet. "Our new government does not love
money--at least it does not love its employees to have money. It only
seeks intellectual capacity."

Dear Brisquet answered me so lightly that I began to fear he was
conceited.

"Love without money is nonsense," I said. "While you were seeking food
you would not occupy yourself with me, my dear."

By way of response this charming Frenchman assured me that he was a
direct descendant of Puss in Boots. Besides he had ninety-nine ways of
borrowing money and we would have, he said, only a single way of
spending it. To conclude, he knew music and could give lessons. In fact,
he sang to me, in poignant tones, a national romance of his country, _Au
clair de la lune_....

At this inopportune moment, when seduced by his reasoning, I had
promised dear Brisquet to run away with him as soon as he could keep a
wife comfortably, Puck appeared, followed by several other Cats.

"I am lost!" I cried.

The very next day, indeed, the bench of Doctors' Commons was occupied by
a _proces-verbal_ in criminal conversation. Puff was deaf; his nephews
took advantage of his weakness. Questioned by them, Puff said that at
night I had flattered him by calling him, _Mon petit homme_! This was
one of the most terrible things against me, because I could not explain
where I had learned these words of love. The judge, without knowing it,
was prejudiced against me, and I noted that he was in his second
childhood. His lordship never suspected the low intrigues of which I was
the victim. Many little Cats, who should have defended me against public
opinion, swore that Puff was always asking for his angel, the joy of his
eyes, his sweet Beauty! My own mother, come to London, refused to see me
or to speak to me, saying that an English Cat should always be above
suspicion, and that I had embittered her old age. Finally the servants
testified against me. I then saw perfectly clearly how everybody lost
his head in England. When it is a matter of a criminal conversation, all
sentiment is dead; a mother is no longer a mother, a nurse wants to take
back her milk, and all the Cats howl in the streets. But the most
infa