h she sold one by one, married, in 1799, my step-father,
Monsieur Yung, a purveyor. But my mother is dead, and I have quarrelled
with my step-father, who, between ourselves, is a blackguard; he is
still alive, but I never see him. That's why, in despair, left all to
myself, I went off to the wars as a private in 1813. Well, to go back
to the time I returned to Greece; you wouldn't believe with what joy old
Ali Tebelen received the grandson of Czerni-Georges. Here, of course, I
call myself simply Georges. The pacha gave me a harem--"

"You have had a harem?" said Oscar.

"Were you a pacha with _many_ tails?" asked Mistigris.

"How is it that you don't know," replied Georges, "that only the Sultan
makes pachas, and that my friend Tebelen (for we were as friendly as
Bourbons) was in rebellion against the Padishah! You know, or you don't
know, that the true title of the Grand Seignior is Padishah, and not
Sultan or Grand Turk. You needn't think that a harem is much of a thing;
you might as well have a herd of goats. The women are horribly
stupid down there; I much prefer the grisettes of the Chaumieres at
Mont-Parnasse."

"They are nearer, at any rate," said the count.

"The women of the harem couldn't speak a word of French, and that
language is indispensable for talking. Ali gave me five legitimate wives
and ten slaves; that's equivalent to having none at all at Janina. In
the East, you must know, it is thought very bad style to have wives and
women. They have them, just as we have Voltaire and Rousseau; but who
ever opens his Voltaire or his Rousseau? Nobody. But, for all that, the
highest style is to be jealous. They sew a woman up in a sack and fling
her into the water on the slightest suspicion,--that's according to
their Code."

"Did you fling any in?" asked the farmer.

"I, a Frenchman! for shame! I loved them."

Whereupon Georges twirled and twisted his moustache with a dreamy air.

They were now entering Saint-Denis, and Pierrotin presently drew up
before the door of a tavern where were sold the famous cheese-cakes of
that place. All the travellers got out. Puzzled by the apparent truth
mingled with Georges' inventions, the count returned to the coucou when
the others had entered the house, and looked beneath the cushion for
the portfolio which Pierrotin told him that enigmatical youth had
placed there. On it he read the words in gilt letters: "Maitre Crottat,
notary." The count at once opened it, and fe