do you put upon this useful
animal?'

'Cela depend'---- replied Jean, with an interrogative glance at his
helpmate.

'Yes, as Jean says, that depends--entirely depends'---- responded the
wife.

'Upon what, citoyenne?'

'Upon what is offered, parbleu! We are in no hurry to part with
Cocotte; but money is tempting.'

'Well, then, suppose we say, between friends, fifty francs?'

'Fifty francs! That is very little; besides, I do not know that I
shall part with Cocotte at all.'

'Come, come; be reasonable. Sixty francs! Is it a bargain?'

Jean still shook his head. 'Tempt him with the actual sight of the
money,' confidentially suggested Madame Souday; 'that is the only way
to strike a bargain with my husband.'

Delessert preferred increasing his offer to this advice, and gradually
advanced to 100 francs, without in the least softening Jean Souday's
obduracy. The possessor of the assignats was fain, at last, to adopt
Madame Souday's iterated counsel, and placed 120 paper francs before
the owner of Cocotte. The husband and wife instantly, as silently,
exchanged with each other, by the only electric telegraph then in use,
the words: 'I thought so.'

'This is charming money, friend Delessert,' said Jean Souday; 'far
more precious to an enlightened mind than the barbarous coin stamped
with effigies of kings and queens of the _ancien regime_. It is very
tempting; still, I do not think I can part with Cocotte at any price.'

Poor Delessert ground his teeth with rage, but the expression of his
anger would avail nothing; and, yielding to hard necessity, he at
length, after much wrangling, became the purchaser of the old mare for
250 francs--in assignats. We give this as a specimen of the bargains
effected by the owner of Les Pres with his borrowed capital, and as
affording a key to the bitter hatred he from that day cherished
towards the notary, by whom he had, as he conceived, been so
egregiously duped. Towards evening, he entered a wine-shop in the
suburb of Robertsau, drank freely, and talked still more so, fatigue
and vexation having rendered him both thirsty and bold. Destouches, he
assured everybody that would listen to him, was a robber--a villain--a
vampire blood-sucker, and he, Delessert, would be amply revenged on
him some fine day. Had the loquacious orator been eulogising some
one's extraordinary virtues, it is very probable that all he said
would have been forgotten by the morrow, but the memories of men