ch to
talk with you, how am I going to tell Rastignac about your being
hissed?"

This reasoning silenced Mr. Remy for an instant--an instant only.

"You _vood_ have done it!" he cried, sticking out his chin and thrusting
his face forward.

"Well, I didn't," said Madame, "and nobody reads that thing, any way.
Now, don't mind it, and let me get your things off, or you'll be
catching cold."

Mr. Remy yielded at last to the necessity of self-preservation, and
permitted his wife to remove his frogged overcoat, and to unwind him
from a system of silk wraps to which the Gordian knot was a slip-noose.
This done, he sat down before the dressing-case, and Mme. Remy, after
tying a bib around his neck, proceeded to dress his hair and put
brilliantine on his moustache. Her husband enlivened the operation by
reading from the pinky paper.

"It ees not gen-air-al-lee known--zat zees dees-tin-guished tenor vos
heest on ze pob-lic staidj at Nice--in ze year--"

Louise leaned against the wall, sick, faint and frightened, with a
strange sense of shame and degradation at her heart. At last the tenor's
eye fell on her.

"Anozzair eediot?" he inquired.

"She ain't very bright, Hipleet," replied his wife; "but I guess she'll
do. Louise, open the door--there's the caterer."

Louise placed the dishes upon the table mechanically. The tenor sat
himself at the board, and tucked a napkin in his neck.

"And how did the Benediction Song go this afternoon?" inquired his
wife.

"Ze Benediction? Ah! One _encore_. One on-lee. Zese pigs of Ameericains.
I t'row my pairls biffo' swine. _Chops once more!_ You vant to mordair
me? Vat do zis mean, madame? You ar-r-re in lig wiz my enemies. All ze
vorlt is against ze ar-r-r-teest!"

The storm that followed made the first seem a zephyr. The tenor
exhausted his execratory vocabulary in French and English. At last, by
way of a dramatic finale, he seized the plate of chops and flung it from
him. He aimed at the wall; but Frenchmen do not pitch well. With a ring
and a crash, plate and chops went through the broad window-pane. In the
moment of stricken speechlessness that followed, the sound of the final
smash came softly up from the sidewalk.

"Ah-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ah!"

The tenor rose to his feet with the howl of an anguished hyena.

"Oh, good gracious!" cried his wife; "he's going to have one of his
creezes--his creezes de nare!"

He did have a _crise de nerfs_. "Ten dollair!" he yelled, "for