ms of the Brigadier Pesac screaming with convulsive
laughter. The crowd caught the infection of merriment. Shrieks filled
the air. The vast mass of masqueraders held their sides, swayed
helplessly, rolled in heaps, men and women, tearing each other's
garments as they fell.

Aristide, deposited on the ground by the Brigadier Pesac laughed and
laughed. When he recovered some consciousness of surroundings, he found
the Mayor bending over him and using language that would have made
Tophet put its fingers in its ears. He rose. Madame Coquereau shook her
thin fists in his face.

"Imbecile! Triple fool!" she cried.

Aristide turned tail and fled. There was nothing else to do.

And that was the end of his career at Perpignan. Vanished were the
dreams of civic eminence; melted into thin air the statue on the Quai
Sadi-Carnot; faded, too, the vision of the modest Stephanie crowned with
orange-blossom; gone forever the two hundred and fifty thousand francs.
Never since Alnaschar kicked over his basket of crockery was there such
a hideous welter of shattered hopes.

If the Mayor had been allowed to go disguised to the Police Station, he
could have disclosed his identity and that of the lady in private to
awe-stricken functionaries. He might have forgiven Aristide. But
Aristide had exposed him to the derision of the whole of Roussillon and
the never ending wrath of Madame Coquereau. Ruefully Aristide asked
himself the question: why had the Mayor not taken him into the
confidence of his masquerading escapade? Why had he not told him of the
pretty widow, whom, unknown to his mother, he was courting? Why had he
permitted her to wear the ring which he had given her so as to spite his
sainted Aunt Philomene? And why had he gone on wearing the pig's head
after Aristide had told him of his suspicions? Ruefully Aristide found
no answers save in the general chuckle-headedness of mankind.

"If it hadn't been such a good farce I should have wept like a cow,"
said Aristide, after relating this story. "But every time I wanted to
cry, I laughed. _Nom de Dieu!_ You should have seen his face! And the
face of Madame Coquereau! She opened her mouth wide showing ten yellow
teeth and squealed like a rabbit! Oh, it was a good farce! He was very
cross with me," he added after a smiling pause, "and when I got back to
Paris I tried to pacify him."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I sent him my photograph," said Aristide.

VI

THE ADVENTURE