He shrugged his shoulders, tore up the calendar and said, beating the
floor with his foot: "Your almanac is a humbug!"

M. Renault ran to his library, took up half a dozen books at haphazard
and made him read, at the foot of the title pages, the dates 1826, 1833,
1847, 1858.

"Pardon me!" said Fougas, burying his head in his hands. "What has
happened to me is so new! I do not think that another human being was
ever subjected to such a trial. I am seventy years old!"

Good Madame Renault went and got a looking-glass from the bath room, and
gave it to him, saying:

"Look!"

He took the glass in both hands, and was silently occupied in resuming
acquaintance with himself, when a hand-organ came into the court and
began playing "Partant pour la Syrie!"

Fougas threw the mirror to the ground, and cried out:

"What is that you were telling me? I hear the little song of Queen
Hortense!"[4]

M. Renault patiently explained to him, while picking up the pieces of
the mirror, that the pretty little song of Queen Hortense had become a
national air, and even an official one, since the regimental bands had
substituted that gentle melody for the fierce Marsellaise, and that our
soldiers, strange to say, had not fought any the worse for it. But the
Colonel had already opened the window, and was crying out to the
Savoyard:

"Eh! Friend! A napoleon for you if you will tell me in what year I am
drawing the breath of life!"

The artist began dancing as lightly as possible playing on his musical
instrument.

"Advance at the order!" cried the Colonel, "and keep that devilish
machine still!"

"A little penny, my good monsieur!"

"It is not a penny that I'll give you, but a napoleon, if you'll tell me
what year it is."

"Oh but that's funny! Hi--hi--hi!"

"And if you don't tell me quicker than this amounts to, I'll cut your
ears off!"

The Savoyard ran away, but he came back pretty soon, having meditated,
during his flight, on the maxim: "Nothing risk nothing gain."

"Monsieur," said he, in a wheedling voice, "this is the year Eighteen
Hundred and Fifty-nine."

"Good!" cried Fougas. He felt in his pockets for money, and found
nothing there. Leon saw his predicament, and flung twenty francs into
the court. Before shutting the window, he pointed out, to the right, the
facade of a pretty little new building where the Colonel could
distinctly read

AUDRET ARCHITECTE.

MDCCCLIX.

A perfectly satisfactory piece