er midnight?' But he insisted, and thrust his great
numskull out into the rain to give orders to the driver. She was obliged
to pull him back with an effort, and feeling too much exhausted to carry
on the lie, to let him say his say and bring him round gradually, she
came out with the whole truth.

'It's not Teyssedre--it's I! There!' At one breath she poured out the
story of her visit to Bos, the money she had got, the 800L., and the
necessity for it. The silence which ensued was so long that at first she
thought he had had a fit of apoplexy. It was not that; but like a child
that falls or hits itself, poor Crocodilus had opened his mouth so wide
to let out his anger, and taken so deep a breath, that he could not
utter a sound. At last came a roar that filled the Carrousel, where
their cab was at that minute splashing through the pools.

'Robbed, robbed! Robbed by my wife for the sake of her son!' In his
insane fury he jumbled together indiscriminately the abusive patois of
his native hillside, '_Ah la garso! Ah li bongri!_' with the classical
exclamations of Harpagon bewailing his casket, _Justice, justice du
ciel!_' and other select extracts often recited to his pupils. It was
as light as day in the bright rays of the tall electric lamps standing
round the great square, over which, as the theatres were emptying,
omnibuses and carriages were now passing in all directions.

'Do be quiet,' said Madame Astier; 'everyone knows you.'

'Except you, Madame!'

She thought he was going to beat her, and in the strained condition of
her nerves it might perhaps have been a relief. But under the terror
of a scandal he suddenly quieted down, swearing finally by his mother's
ashes that as soon as he got home he would pack up his trunk and
go straight off to Sauvagnat, leaving his wife to depart with her
scoundrelly prodigal and live on their spoils.

Once more the deep old box with its big nails was brought hastily from
the anteroom into the study. A few billets of wood were still left in it
from the winter's supply, but the 'deity' did not change his purpose for
that. For an hour the house resounded with the rolling of logs and the
banging of cupboard doors, as he flung among the sawdust and bits of
dry bark linen, clothes, boots, and even the green coat and embroidered
waistcoat of the Academic full dress, carefully put away in napkins. His
wrath was relieved by this operation, and diminished as he filled his
trunk, till his