im a dignified bow and compressed her lips.

Then the gentleman, who was sitting between Rosa and the old peasant,
began to wink knowingly at the ducks whose heads were sticking out of
the basket, and when he felt that he had fixed the attention of his
public, he began to tickle them under the bills and spoke funnily to
them to make the company smile.

"We have left our little pond, quack! quack! to make the acquaintance of
the little spit, qu-ack! qu-ack!"

The unfortunate creatures turned their necks away, to avoid his
caresses, and made desperate efforts to get out of their wicker prison,
and then, suddenly, all at once, uttered the most lamentable quacks
of distress. The women exploded with laughter. They leaned forward and
pushed each other, so as to see better; they were very much interested
in the ducks, and the gentleman redoubled his airs, his wit and his
teasing.

Rosa joined in, and leaning over her neighbor's legs, she kissed the
three animals on the head, and immediately all the girls wanted to kiss
them, in turn, and as they did so the gentleman took them on his knee,
jumped them up and down and pinched their arms. The two peasants, who
were even in greater consternation than their poultry, rolled their
eyes as if they were possessed, without venturing to move, and their old
wrinkled faces had not a smile, not a twitch.

Then the gentleman, who was a commercial traveller, offered the ladies
suspenders by way of a joke, and taking up one of his packages, he
opened it. It was a joke, for the parcel contained garters. There were
blue silk, pink silk, red silk, violet silk, mauve silk garters, and
the buckles were made of two gilt metal cupids embracing each other.
The girls uttered exclamations of delight and looked at them with that
gravity natural to all women when they are considering an article of
dress. They consulted one another by their looks or in a whisper, and
replied in the same manner, and Madame Tellier was longingly handling a
pair of orange garters that were broader and more imposing looking than
the rest; really fit for the mistress of such an establishment.

The gentleman waited, for he had an idea.

"Come, my kittens," he said, "you must try them on."

There was a torrent of exclamations, and they squeezed their petticoats
between their legs, but he quietly waited his time and said: "Well, if
you will not try them on I shall pack them up again."

And he added cunningly: "I offer an