nty good Gods! I see him
between your legs! you'll have him!--Ah! there! he's gone--he's gone!"
cried the old man, in despair.

Then, in the fury of the chase, the old fellow plunged into the deepest
part of the stream in front of Blondet.

"It's your fault we've lost him!" he cried, as Blondet gave him a hand
to pull him out, dripping like a triton, and a vanquished triton. "The
rascal, I see him, under those rocks! He has let go his fish," continued
Fourchon, pointing to something that floated on the surface. "We'll have
that at any rate; it's a tench, a real tench."

Just then a groom in livery on horseback and leading another horse by
the bridle galloped up the road toward Conches.

"See! there's the chateau people sending after you," said the old man.
"If you want to cross back again I'll give you a hand. I don't mind
about getting wet; it saves washing!"

"How about rheumatism?"

"Rheumatism! don't you see the sun has browned our legs, Mouche and me,
like tobacco-pipes. Here, lean on me, my good gentleman--you're from
Paris; you don't know, though you _do_ know so much, how to walk on our
rocks. If you stay here long enough, you'll learn a deal that's
written in the book o' nature,--you who write, so they tell me, in the
newspapers."

Blondet had reached the bank before Charles, the groom, perceived him.

"Ah, monsieur!" he cried; "you don't know how anxious Madame has been
since she heard you had gone through the gate of Conches; she was
afraid you were drowned. They have rung the great bell three times, and
Monsieur le cure is hunting for you in the park."

"What time is it, Charles?"

"A quarter to twelve."

"Help me to mount."

"Ha!" exclaimed the groom, noticing the water that dripped from
Blondet's boots and trousers, "has monsieur been taken in by Pere
Fourchon's otter?"

The words enlightened the journalist.

"Don't say a word about it, Charles," he cried, "and I'll make it all
right with you."

"Oh, as for that!" answered the man, "Monsieur le comte himself has been
taken in by that otter. Whenever a visitor comes to Les Aigues, Pere
Fourchon sets himself on the watch, and if the gentleman goes to see the
sources of the Avonne he sells him the otter; he plays the trick so well
that Monsieur le comte has been here three times and paid him for six
days' work, just to stare at the water!"

"Heavens!" thought Blondet. "And I imagined I had seen the greatest
comedians of the present day!-