mustn't go to that Giguet meeting unless Achille Pigoult accompanies
you; I've told him to come and take you."

Giving Achille Pigoult as mentor to Beauvisage meant sending a spy from
the Gondreville party to the Giguet assemblage. We may therefore imagine
the grimace which contracted the puritan visage of Simon, who was
forced to welcome graciously an _habitue_ of his aunt's salon and an
influential elector, in whom, nevertheless, he saw an enemy.

"Ah!" he thought to himself, "what a mistake I made in refusing him
that security when he asked for it! Old Gondreville had more sense than
I--Good-day to you, Achille," he said, assuming a jaunty manner; "I
suppose you mean to trip me up."

"Your meeting isn't a conspiracy against the independence of our votes,"
replied the notary, smiling. "We are all playing above-board, I take
it."

"Above-board," echoed Beauvisage.

And the mayor began to laugh with that expressionless laugh by which
some persons end all their sentences; which may, perhaps, be called the
_ritornello_ of their conversation. After which he placed himself in
what we must describe as his third position, standing full-front, his
chest expanded, and his hands behind his back. He was dressed in black
coat and trousers, with an effulgent white waistcoat, opened in such a
way as to show two diamond shirt-buttons worth several thousand francs.

"We shall fight, but we shall not be the less good friends," he said.
"That is the essence of constitutional morals; he! he! he! That is how
_I_ understand the alliance of monarchy with liberty; ha! ha! ha!"

Whereupon the mayor took Simon's hand, saying:

"How are you, my good friend? Your dear aunt and our worthy colonel
are no doubt as well to-day as they were yesterday,--that is, I presume
so,--he! he! he!" adding, with an air of perfect beatitude, "perhaps a
little agitated by the ceremony now about to take place. Ha! ha! young
man; so we intend to enter a political career? Ha! ha! ha! This is our
first step--mustn't step back--it is a great career. I'd rather it were
you than I to rush into the storms and tempests of the legislative body,
hi! hi!--however agreeable it may be to see that body in our own person,
hi! hi! hi!--the sovereign power of France in one four hundred and
fifty-third! Hi! hi! hi!"

The vocal organ of Phileas Beauvisage had an agreeable sonority
altogether in harmony with the leguminous curves of his face (of the
color of a light yello