ou are! what have you been eating to-night?"

Gaudissart was thirty-eight years of age, of medium height, stout and
fat like men who roll about continually in stage-coaches, with a face as
round as a pumpkin, ruddy cheeks, and regular features of the type which
sculptors of all lands adopt as a model for statues of Abundance, Law,
Force, Commerce, and the like. His protuberant stomach swelled forth in
the shape of a pear; his legs were small, but active and vigorous. He
caught Jenny up in his arms like a baby and kissed her.

"Hold your tongue, young woman!" he said. "What do you know about
Saint-Simonism, antagonism, Fourierism, criticism, heroic enterprise,
or woman's freedom? I'll tell you what they are,--ten francs for each
subscription, Madame Gaudissart."

"On my word of honor, you are going crazy, Gaudissart."

"More and more crazy about _you_," he replied, flinging his hat upon the
sofa.

The next morning Gaudissart, having breakfasted gloriously with Jenny,
departed on horseback to work up the chief towns of the district to
which he was assigned by the various enterprises in whose interests he
was now about to exercise his great talents. After spending forty-five
days in beating up the country between Paris and Blois, he remained two
weeks at the latter place to write up his correspondence and make short
visits to the various market towns of the department. The night before
he left Blois for Tours he indited a letter to Mademoiselle Jenny
Courand. As the conciseness and charm of this epistle cannot be equalled
by any narration of ours, and as, moreover, it proves the legitimacy of
the tie which united these two individuals, we produce it here:--

"My dear Jenny,--You will lose your wager. Like Napoleon,
Gaudissart the illustrious has his star, but _not_ his Waterloo. I
triumph everywhere. Life insurance has done well. Between Paris
and Blois I lodged two millions. But as I get to the centre of
France heads become infinitely harder and millions correspondingly
scarce. The article Paris keeps up its own little jog-trot. It is
a ring on the finger. With all my well-known cunning I spit these
shop-keepers like larks. I got off one hundred and sixty-two
Ternaux shawls at Orleans. I am sure I don't know what they will
do with them, unless they return them to the backs of the sheep.

"As to the article journal--the devil! that's a horse of another
color. Holy saints! how one has to warbl