f with the knickknacks about
the apartments, picking out by instinct the best engravings and canvases
of value. The good man was enchanted with Maurice and hastened to show
him his private museum, forgetting all about his pipe--he was smoking at
present a Garibaldi--and presented him his last engraving, where one
saw--it certainly was a fatality that pursued the old republican!--the
Emperor Napoleon III, at Magenta, motionless upon his horse in the centre
of a square of grenadiers, cut down by grape and canister.

Maurice's visit was short, and as Amedee had thought a great deal about
little Maria for several days, he asked his friend, as he conducted him a
part of the way:

"What did you think of her?"

Maurice simply replied, "Delicious!" and changed the conversation.

CHAPTER VI

DREAMS OF LOVE

Solemn moment approached for the two friends. They were to take their
examinations for graduation. Upon the days when M. Violette--they now
called him at the office "Father Violette," he had grown so aged and
decrepit--was not too much "consoled" in the cafe in the Rue du Four, and
when he was less silent and gloomy than usual, he would say to his son,
after the soup:

"Do you know, Amedee, I shall not be easy in my mind until you have
received your degree. Say what they may, it leads to everything."

To everything indeed! M. Violette had a college friend upon whom all the
good marks had been showered, who, having been successively schoolmaster,
journalist, theatrical critic, a boarder in Mazas prison, insurance
agent, director of an athletic ring--he quoted Homer in his harangue--at
present pushed back the curtains at the entrance to the Ambigu, and
waited for his soup at the barracks gate, holding out an old tomato-can
to be filled.

But M. Violette had no cause to fear! Amedee received his degree on the
same day with his friend Maurice, and both passed honorably. A little old
man with a head like a baboon--the scientific examiner--tried to make
Amedee flounder on the subject of nitrogen, but he passed all the same.
One can hope for everything nowadays.

But what could Amedee hope for first? M. Violette thought of it when he
was not at his station at the Rue du Four. What could he hope for?
Nothing very great.

Probably he could enter the ministry as an auxiliary. One hundred francs
a month, and the gratuities, would not be bad for a beginner! M. Violette
recalled his endless years in the office, and all