y francs. Let her have to-night a
dress and a shoe. To-morrow we'll arrange the rest."

And, with a friendly tap on Pierette's cheek, the Captain went off,
delighted that everything was concluded. Possibly he thought he would
have to cut off some glasses of beer and absinthe, and be cautious of
the veterinary's skill at bezique. But that was not worth speaking of,
and the new arrangement would be quite the thing.

IV.

Captain, you are a coward!

Such was the apostrophe with which the caryatides of the Cafe Prosper
hereafter greeted the Captain, whose visits became rarer day by day.

For the poor man had not seen all the consequences of his good action.
The suppression of his morning absinthe had been sufficient to cover the
modest expense of Pierette's keeping, but how many other reforms were
needed to provide for the unforeseen expenses of his bachelor
establishment! Full of gratitude, the little girl wished to prove it by
her zeal. Already the aspect of his room was changed. The furniture was
dusted and arranged, the fireplace cleaned, the floor polished, and
spiders no longer spun their webs over the deaths of Poniatowski in the
corner. When the Captain came home the inviting odor of cabbage-soup
saluted him on the staircase, and the sight of the smoking plates on the
coarse but white table-cloth, with a bunch of flowers and polished
table-ware, was quite enough to give him a good appetite. Pierette
profited by the good-humor of her master to confess some of her secret
ambitions. She wanted andirons for the fireplace, where there was now
always a fire burning, and a mould for the little cakes that she knew
how to make so well. And the Captain, smiling at the child's requests,
but charmed with the homelike atmosphere of his room, promised to think
of it, and on the morrow replaced his Londres by cigars for a sou each,
hesitated to offer five points at ecarte, and refused his third glass
of beer or his second glass of chartreuse.

[Illustration]

Certainly the struggle was long; it was cruel. Often, when the hour came
for the glass that was denied him by economy, when thirst seized him by
the throat, the Captain was forced to make an heroic effort to withdraw
his hand already reaching out towards the swan's beak of the cafe; many
times he wandered about, dreaming of the king turned up and of quint and
quatorze. But he almost always courageously returned home; and as he
loved Pierette more through every sacri