me journalists?"

"Ah! It appears they generally commence by being reporters. Reporters slip
in everywhere, in official gatherings, and theatres, never missing a first
night, nor a fire, nor a great ball, nor a murder."

"How well acquainted you are with all this!"

"Yes, very well acquainted. Ah! Mon Dieu! You are my friend, you will keep
my secret, and if you will not repeat this in Versailles--I will tell you
how it is--we have one in the family."

"One what?"

"A reporter."

"A reporter in your family, which always seemed so united! How can that
be?"

"One can almost say that the devil was at the bottom of it. You know my
nephew Joseph--"

"Little Joseph! Is he a reporter?"

"Yes."

"Little Joseph, I can see him in the park now, rolling a hoop,
bare-legged, with a broad white collar, not more than six or seven
years ago--and now he writes for newspapers!"

"Yes, newspapers! You know my brother keeps a pharmacy in the Rue
Montorgueil, an old and reliable firm, and naturally my brother said to
himself, 'After me, my son.' Joseph worked hard at chemistry, followed the
course of study, and had already passed an examination. The boy was steady
and industrious, and had a taste for the business. On Sundays for
recreation he made tinctures, prepared prescriptions, pasted the labels
and rolled pills. When, as misfortune would have it, a murder was
committed about twenty feet from my brother's pharmacy--"

"The murder of the Rue Montorgueil--that clerk who killed his sweetheart,
a little brewery maid?"

"The very same. Joseph was attracted by the cries, saw the murderer
arrested, and after the police were gone stayed there in the street,
talking and jabbering. The Saturday before, Joseph had a game of billiards
with the murderer."

"With the murderer!"

"Oh! accidentally--he knew him by sight, went to the same cafe, that's
all, and they had played at pool together, Joseph and the murderer--a man
named Nicot. Joseph told this to the crowd, and you may well imagine how
important that made him, when suddenly a little blond man seized him. 'You
know the murderer?' 'A little, not much; I played pool with him.' 'And do
you know the motive of the crime?' 'It was love, Monsieur, love; Nicot had
met a girl, named Eugenie--' 'You knew the victim, too?' 'Only by sight,
she was there in the cafe the night we played.' 'Very well; but don't tell
that to anybody; come, come, quick.' He took possession of Joseph and made