rotest, it amused him to heighten the color
of the episode. Newman had sat with Western humorists in knots, round
cast-iron stoves, and seen "tall" stories grow taller without toppling
over, and his own imagination had learned the trick of piling up
consistent wonders. Bellegarde's regular attitude at last became that
of laughing self-defense; to maintain his reputation as an all-knowing
Frenchman, he doubted of everything, wholesale. The result of this was
that Newman found it impossible to convince him of certain time-honored
verities.

"But the details don't matter," said M. de Bellegarde. "You have
evidently had some surprising adventures; you have seen some strange
sides of life, you have revolved to and fro over a whole continent as
I walked up and down the Boulevard. You are a man of the world with a
vengeance! You have spent some deadly dull hours, and you have done some
extremely disagreeable things: you have shoveled sand, as a boy, for
supper, and you have eaten roast dog in a gold-diggers' camp. You have
stood casting up figures for ten hours at a time, and you have sat
through Methodist sermons for the sake of looking at a pretty girl in
another pew. All that is rather stiff, as we say. But at any rate you
have done something and you are something; you have used your will
and you have made your fortune. You have not stupified yourself
with debauchery and you have not mortgaged your fortune to social
conveniences. You take things easily, and you have fewer prejudices even
than I, who pretend to have none, but who in reality have three or
four. Happy man, you are strong and you are free. But what the deuce,"
demanded the young man in conclusion, "do you propose to do with such
advantages? Really to use them you need a better world than this. There
is nothing worth your while here."

"Oh, I think there is something," said Newman.

"What is it?"

"Well," murmured Newman, "I will tell you some other time!"

In this way our hero delayed from day to day broaching a subject
which he had very much at heart. Meanwhile, however, he was growing
practically familiar with it; in other words, he had called again, three
times, on Madame de Cintre. On only two of these occasions had he found
her at home, and on each of them she had other visitors. Her visitors
were numerous and extremely loquacious, and they exacted much of their
hostess's attention. She found time, however, to bestow a little of it
on Newman, in an o