ead her wings wide to shelter her growing
brood of little ones.

"There's one more!" cried Toine.

He was mistaken. There were three! It was an unalloyed triumph! The last
chicken broke through its shell at seven o'clock in the evening. All the
eggs were good! And Toine, beside himself with joy, his brood hatched
out, exultant, kissed the tiny creature on the back, almost suffocating
it. He wanted to keep it in his bed until morning, moved by a mother's
tenderness toward the tiny being which he had brought to life, but the
old woman carried it away like the others, turning a deaf ear to her
husband's entreaties.

The delighted spectators went off to spread the news of the event, and
Horslaville, who was the last to go, asked:

"You'll invite me when the first is cooked, won't you, Toine?"

At this idea a smile overspread the fat man's face, and he answered:

"Certainly I'll invite you, my son-in-law."

MADAME HUSSON'S "ROSIER"

We had just left Gisors, where I was awakened to hearing the name of
the town called out by the guards, and I was dozing off again when a
terrific shock threw me forward on top of a large lady who sat opposite
me.

One of the wheels of the engine had broken, and the engine itself lay
across the track. The tender and the baggage car were also derailed,
and lay beside this mutilated engine, which rattled, groaned, hissed,
puffed, sputtered, and resembled those horses that fall in the street
with their flanks heaving, their breast palpitating, their nostrils
steaming and their whole body trembling, but incapable of the slightest
effort to rise and start off again.

There were no dead or wounded; only a few with bruises, for the train
was not going at full speed. And we looked with sorrow at the great
crippled iron creature that could not draw us along any more, and that
blocked the track, perhaps for some time, for no doubt they would have
to send to Paris for a special train to come to our aid.

It was then ten o'clock in the morning, and I at once decided to go back
to Gisors for breakfast.

As I was walking along I said to myself:

"Gisors, Gisors--why, I know someone there!

"Who is it? Gisors? Let me see, I have a friend in this town." A name
suddenly came to my mind, "Albert Marambot." He was an old school friend
whom I had not seen for at least twelve years, and who was practicing
medicine in Gisors. He had often written, inviting me to come and see
him, and I had alwa