th joy at
seeing the gorgeous carriage at her door, with footmen in royal livery
letting down the steps, was too agitated on hearing that the grand
equerry had called for her, to find her gloves, her parasol, her
absurdity, or her usual air of pompous dignity. Once in the carriage,
however, and while expressing confused thanks and civilities to the
little duke, she suddenly exclaimed, from a thought in her kind heart,--

"But Butscha, where is he?"

"Let us take Butscha," said the duke, smiling.

When the people on the quays, attracted in groups by the splendor of the
royal equipage, saw the funny spectacle, the three little men with the
spare gigantic woman, they looked at one another and laughed.

"If you melt all three together, they might make one man fit to mate
with that big cod-fish," said a sailor from Bordeaux.

"Is there any other thing you would like to take with you, madame?"
asked the duke, jestingly, while the footman awaited his orders.

"No, monseigneur," she replied, turning scarlet and looking at her
husband as much as to say, "What did I do wrong?"

"Monsieur le duc honors me by considering that I am a thing," said
Butscha; "a poor clerk is usually thought to be a nonentity."

Though this was said with a laugh, the duke colored and did not answer.
Great people are to blame for joking with their social inferiors.
Jesting is a game, and games presuppose equality; it is to obviate any
inconvenient results of this temporary equality that players have the
right, after the game is over, not to recognize each other.

The visit of the grand equerry had the ostensible excuse of an important
piece of business; namely, the retrieval of an immense tract of waste
land left by the sea between the mouths of the two rivers, which
tract had just been adjudged by the Council of State to the house of
Herouville. The matter was nothing less than putting flood-gates with
double bridges, draining three or four hundred acres, cutting canals,
and laying out roadways. When the duke had explained the condition of
the land, Charles Mignon remarked that time must be allowed for the
soil, which was still moving, to settle and grow solid in a natural way.

"Time, which has providentially enriched your house, Monsieur le duc,
can alone complete the work," he said, in conclusion. "It would be
prudent to let fifty years elapse before you reclaim the land."

"Do not let that be your final word, Monsieur le comte," said the