l publish the Maloury dossier!"

Some days later by a unanimous vote of both Houses, on a motion proposed
by the Government, the Anti-Pyrotist Association was granted a charter
recognising it as beneficial to the public interest.

The Association immediately sent a deputation to Chitterlings Castle in
Porpoisia, where Crucho was eating the bitter bread of exile, to assure
the prince of the love and devotion of the Anti-Pyrotist members.

However, the Pyrotists grew in numbers, and now counted ten thousand.
They had their regular cafes on the boulevards. The patriots had theirs
also, richer and bigger, and every evening glasses of beer, saucers,
match-stands, jugs, chairs, and tables were hurled from one to the
other. Mirrors were smashed to bits, and the police ended the struggles
by impartially trampling the combatants of both parties under their
hob-nailed shoes.

On one of these glorious nights, as Prince des Boscenos was leaving
a fashionable cafe in the company of some patriots, M. de La Trumelle
pointed out to him a little, bearded man with glasses, hatless, and
having only one sleeve to his coat, who was painfully dragging himself
along the rubbish-strewn pavement.

"Look!" said he, "there is Colomban!"

The prince had gentleness as well as strength; he was exceedingly mild;
but at the name of Colomban his blood boiled. He rushed at the little
spectacled man, and knocked him down with one blow of his fist on the
nose.

M. de La Trumelle then perceived that, misled by an undeserved
resemblance, he had mistaken for Colomban, M. Bazile, a retired lawyer,
the secretary of the Anti-pyrotist Association, and an ardent and
generous patriot. Prince des Boscenos was one of those antique souls who
never bend. However, he knew how to recognise his faults.

"M. Bazile," said he, raising his hat, "if I have touched your face with
my hand you will excuse me and you will understand me, you will approve
of me, nay, you will compliment me, you will congratulate me and
felicitate me, when you know the cause of that act. I took you for
Colomban."

M. Bazile, wiping his bleeding nostrils with his handkerchief and
displaying an elbow laid bare by the absence of his sleeve:

"No, sir," answered he drily, "I shall not felicitate you, I shall not
congratulate you, I shall not compliment you, for your action was, at
the very least, superfluous; it was, I will even say, supererogatory.
Already this evening I have been three ti