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He had finished his chocolate, and he now poured out a glass of ice-water, drank it, wiped his mouth, and rose from the table. "You will excuse me, my dear sir, if I leave you," he remarked. "As I said before, I am going to Vincennes. I have staked a thousand louis on 'Pompier de Nanterre, my horse, and my friends have ventured ten times as much.

This afforded him another opportunity of attracting public attention, and to giving proofs of his "form," for he had not filled the box of his carriage with champagne for nothing. At last the decisive moment came, and he made himself conspicuous by shouting. "Now! Now! Here he is! Look! Bravo, Pompier! One hundred on Pompier!"

He saw himself reduced to dismissing his carriage, to selling his third share of Pompier de Nanterre and losing the esteem of all his witty friends. He was in the depths of despair, when one morning his servant woke him up with the announcement that the Viscount de Coralth was in the sitting-room and wished to speak with him on very important business.

"If you are speaking the truth, I shall soon be rich," said he. "But, in the meantime, life is hard. I haven't a penny, and it isn't a pleasant situation. I have a horse entered for the race to-morrow, Pompier de Nanterre. You know the animal very well. The chances are enormously in his favor. So, if it wouldn't inconvenience you to lend me fifty louis."

But this first mishap annoyed him extremely. What should he do? how should he kill time till the evening? A cab was passing. He hired it for a drive to the Bois, whence he returned to the boulevards, played a game of billiards with one of the co-proprietors of Pompier de Nanterre, and finally dined at the Cafe Riche, devoting as much time as possible to the operation.

"Exactly the bill of fare needs the hors d'oeuvres; you'll go as an olive, and probably come back a sardine in a box." And the fierce little man grinned, lighted a cigarette, and sauntered away, still grinning. What did he care? He was a pompier and exempt.

The art critic of the Gil Blas, M. Louis Vauxelles, whose scathing criticisms of the "classic" pompier academic school of painting and of sculpture, and whose intelligent censure of the extreme "futurist" clique elicit the hearty approval of all true lovers of art, in the United States, as well as in France, is serving as a simple soldier in an infantry regiment, but finds time occasionally to write to the Intransigeant picturesque descriptions of military life.

Had he not been flattered and admired more than any of his companions? Had he not found the most exquisite happiness in his part ownership of Pompier de Nanterre! Now, what remained? Nothing, save anxiety concerning the future, and all sorts of uncertainties and terrors! What a mistake! What a blunder he had made! Ah! if he could only begin again.