tes of a trumpet grew
louder and louder, adding in a pompous, commanding tone--

"Francois! if I catch you, you rascal, you'll soon know what for!"

I jump up, run to the window, and see quite distinctly my uncle,
Barbassou Pasha himself.

"Hullo! you here, my boy?" says he.

As for me, I leap over the balcony, and fall into his arms; he lifts me
up from the ground, as if I were a child, and we embrace each other. You
may guess my emotion, my surprise, my transports of joy! The servants
watched us from a distance, frightened and not yet daring to approach
near.

"Ah, well!" repeated my uncle; "what on earth's the matter with them?
Have I grown any horns?"

"I will explain everything," I said; "come in, while they take up your
luggage."

"All right!" he replied; "and get some breakfast for me, quick! I'm as
hungry as a wolf."

All this was said with the dignity of a man who never allows himself to
be surprised at anything, and in that meridional accent, the ring of
which is sufficient to betray the origin of the man. My uncle speaks
seven languages; at Paris, as you know, he pronounces with the pure
accent of a Parisian, but directly he sets foot in Provence, that's all
over; he resumes his brogue, or as they call it down here, the _assent_.

He came in, stepping briskly, and holding his head erect; I followed
him. Once in my study, and seeing the table laid, he sat down as
naturally as if he had just returned from a walk in the park, poured out
two large glasses of wine, which he swallowed one after the other with a
gulp of deep satisfaction; and then made a cut at a pie, which he
attacked in a serious manner, rendering it quite impossible to mistake
him for a spectre. I let him alone, still contemplating him with
amazement. When I considered him ready to answer my questions, I said--

"Well, uncle, where have you come from?"

"Te! I come from Japan, you know very well," he answered, just as if he
were referring to the chief town of the department; "only I have dawdled
a bit on the way, which prevented me from writing to you."

"And during the last five months what has happened to you?"

"Pooh! I made an excursion into Abyssinia, in order to see the Negus,
who owed me two hundred thousand francs. He has not paid me, the scamp!
But how odd you do look! And that great _arleri_, Francois! how he
stares at me with his full round eyes, as if I were going to swallow him
up. Is there anything so very fierce abo