that his best course is to give way; he may fume and strut, look
big and villify, but he bows his head and is off with as embarrassed a
face as yours, gentle reader, would certainly be, if a friend whom you
knew to be ruined came and asked you to lend him twenty thousand francs.

But also, by St. Hubert, if you remain the lord and master of this
_Mare_, how your heart leaps, how all fatigue is forgotten! and when the
twilight approaches, what a fever there is in your veins!--what anxiety!
I have heard of the delirious and suffocating emotions of a lover
waiting for his mistress at the rendezvous. Fiddlesticks! I say, gruel
and iced-water. The most volcanic Romeo that ever penned a letter or
scaled a wall, is to the sportsman waiting amidst the howling storm on a
dark night for the wolves, what a cup of cream is to a bottle of
vitriol. As for myself, I would give,--yes, ladies, I am wolf enough to
say,--that I would willingly give up the delightful emotions of ninety
rendezvous, with the loveliest women in the world, black or white, for
twelve with a boar or a wolf. In return for this bad taste, I shall
probably be devoured some day or other,--a fate no doubt duly merited.

I will suppose, therefore, that the sportsman is squatting quietly in
his hut, like a serpent in a bush. With what ardour and nervous anxiety
does he not await the propitious and long-expected hour! He throws open
the ivory doors of his castle in the air,--his hopes are multiplied a
thousandfold. What shall I shoot?--what shall I not shoot? Will it be a
she-wolf, or a roebuck? No, I prefer a boar. Will he be a large one? But
if by chance I should kill a sow?--what a capital affair that would be;
the young ones never leave their mother; perhaps I should bag three or
four,--perhaps the whole fare. But then, how shall I carry them off?
Perhaps the wolves will save me the difficulty of contriving that, and
dispute my title to them,--perhaps they will attack me, eat me, the sow,
the pigs, and my sealskin cap.

How, I beseech you, is the following _monologue_ to stand comparison
with the fierce excitement of such anticipations? Will she come this
evening, the darling--will my sweetest be able to come?--shall I be
blessed with one kiss?--shall it be on the left cheek or the right, or
shall I press her lips to mine? Bah! there can be no comparison in the
hunter's mind; and then you barricade yourself in your hut as evening
approaches, strengthen the weak po