the ham," said Rigou. "If I hadn't
an Annette I should want a Jeannette."

"One is as good as the other," said the ex-gendarme, "for your Annette
is fair and delicate. How is Madame Rigou,--is she asleep?" added
Soudry, roughly, to let Rigou see he understood his joke.

"She wakes with the cock, but she goes to roost with the hens," replied
Rigou. "As for me, I sit up and read the 'Constitutionnel.' My wife lets
me sleep at night and in the morning too; she wouldn't come into my room
for all the world."

"It's just the other way here," replied Jeanette. "Madame sits up with
the company playing cards; sometimes there are sixteen of them in
the salon; Monsieur goes to bed at eight o'clock, and we get up at
daylight--"

"You think that's different," said Rigou, "but it comes to the same
thing in the end. Well, my dear, you come to me and I'll send Annette
here, and that will be the same thing and different too."

"Old scamp, you'll make her ashamed," said Soudry.

"Ha! gendarme; you want your field to yourself! Well, we all get our
happiness where we can find it."

Jeanette, by her master's order, disappeared to lay out his clothes.

"You must have promised to marry her when your wife dies," said Rigou.

"At your age and mine," replied Soudry, "there's no other way."

"With girls of any ambition it would be one way to become a widower,"
added Rigou; "especially if Madame Soudry found fault with Jeannette for
her way of scrubbing the staircase."

The remark made the two husbands pensive. When Jeannette returned and
announced that all was ready, Soudry said to her, "Come and help me!"--a
precaution which made the ex-monk smile.

"There's a difference, indeed!" said he. "As for me, I'd leave you alone
with Annette, my good friend."

A quarter of an hour later Soudry, in his best clothes, got into the
wicker carriage, and the two friends drove round the lake of Soulanges
to Ville-aux-Fayes.

"Look at it!" said Rigou, as they reached an eminence from which the
chateau of Soulanges could be seen in profile.

The old revolutionary put into the tone of his words all the hatred
which the rural middle classes feel to the great chateaux and the great
estates.

"Yes, but I hope it will never be destroyed as long as I live," said
Soudry. "The Comte de Soulanges was my general; he did me kindness; he
got my pension, and he allows Lupin to manage the estate. After Lupin
some of us will have it, and as long as the Sou