ey-coach has just arrived!' 'Well, then, you stupid old
fool, show her up directly. Did I not tell you to do so?' 'Yes,
commandant; you said I was to show her up.' 'Then why do you not obey
me?' 'Because the lady--' 'Speak out, woman, if you can!' 'The lady has
gone again.' 'Something you have said or done, then, to offend her, I am
sure!' roared he in a perfect fury. 'Not at all, commandant. The lady
did not alight, but when the coach stopped and the driver opened the
door, she desired him to take her back to where she came from.' 'The
vehicle cannot have got far by this time,' exclaimed the commandant,
hastening towards the door. 'It has been gone upwards of an hour,'
answered I, enjoying his fury and disappointment. 'An hour! an hour! and
what, in the devil's name, hindered you from letting me know this
sooner?' 'Because, commandant, Alfred and I thought we would spare you
as long as we could the tidings of this third breakdown, which we
fancied might be too much for you.' Come, thinks I, there is something
to make you remember flinging me out of your arms, as though it made you
sick to touch me. 'Begone!' bawled out the commandant. 'You hideous old
hag! You can neither say nor do the thing that is right,' and with this
he pulled off his dressing-gown and threw his beautiful Greek cap, made
of velvet embroidered with gold, on the ground: it was a real shame, for
the cap was a downright beauty; and as for the dressing-gown, oh, my! it
would set anybody longing. Meanwhile the commandant kept pacing the
room, with his eyes glaring like a wild beast and glowing like two
glow-worms."

"But were you not afraid of losing his employ?"

"He knew too well what he was about for that; we had him in a fix, we
knew where his 'madame' lived, and had he said anything to us, we should
have threatened to expose the whole affair. And who do you think for his
beggarly twelve francs would have undertaken to attend to his rooms,--a
stranger? No! That we would have prevented; we would soon have made the
place too hot to hold any person he might appoint,--poor, shabby fellow
that he is! What do you think? He actually had the meanness to examine
his wood and put out the quantity he should allow to be burnt while he
was away. He is nothing but an upstart, I am sure,--a nobody, who has
suddenly tumbled into money he does not know how to spend properly,--a
rich man's head and a beggar's body, who squanders with one hand and
nips and pinches wi