I grow angry enough to strangle my servant. Do
you think that I would permit a woman to do what I myself am unable to
tolerate? And, then, do you think that my stumps are pretty?"

He was silent. What could I say? He certainly was right. Could I blame
her, hold her in contempt, even say that she was wrong? No. However, the
end which conformed to the rule, to the truth, did not satisfy my poetic
appetite. These heroic deeds demand a beautiful sacrifice, which seemed
to be lacking, and I felt a certain disappointment. I suddenly asked:
"Has Madame de Fleurel any children?"

"Yes, one girl and two boys. It is for them that I am bringing these
toys. She and her husband are very kind to me."

The train was going up the incline to Saint-Germain. It passed through
the tunnels, entered the station, and stopped. I was about to offer my
arm to the wounded officer, in order to help him descend, when two hands
were stretched up to him through the open door.

"Hello! my dear Revaliere!"

"Ah! Hello, Fleurel!"

Standing behind the man, the woman, still beautiful, was smiling and
waving her hands to him. A little girl, standing beside her, was jumping
for joy, and two young boys were eagerly watching the drum and the gun,
which were passing from the car into their father's hands.

When the cripple was on the ground, all the children kissed him. Then
they set off, the little girl holding in her hand the small varnished
rung of a crutch, just as she might walk beside her big friend and hold
his thumb.

A STROLL

When Old Man Leras, bookkeeper for Messieurs Labuze and Company, left the
store, he stood for a minute bewildered at the glory of the setting sun.
He had worked all day in the yellow light of a small jet of gas, far in
the back of the store, on a narrow court, as deep as a well. The little
room where he had been spending his days for forty years was so dark that
even in the middle of summer one could hardly see without gaslight from
eleven until three.

It was always damp and cold, and from this hole on which his window
opened came the musty odor of a sewer.

For forty years Monsieur Leras had been arriving every morning in this
prison at eight o'clock, and he would remain there until seven at night,
bending over his books, writing with the industry of a good clerk.

He was now making three thousand francs a year, having started at fifteen
hundred. He had remained a bachelor, as his means did not allow him th