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"Mademoiselle Modeste," said Butscha, appearing with a parcel under his arm, "this hunt makes me very uneasy. I dreamed your horse ran away with you, and I have been to Rouen to see if I could get a Spanish bit which, they tell me, a horse can't take between his teeth. I entreat you to use it. I have shown it to the colonel, and he has thanked me more than there is any occasion for."

Well, naturally, the maiden will be curious; she will wish to see me; but I shall tell her that I am a monster of ugliness; I shall picture myself hideous." At these words Modeste gave Butscha a glance that looked him through and through. If she had said aloud, "What do you know of my love?" she could not have been more explicit.

I hear talk on the quays against it; but that's all nonsense; people are jealous. Why, there's no such 'dot' in Havre," cried Butscha, beginning to count on his fingers.

Butscha poured forth the scandalous gossip of Havre, the private history of fortune and boudoirs, and the crimes committed code in hand, which are called in Normandy, "getting out of a thing as best you can." He spared no one; and his liveliness increased with the torrents of wine which poured down his throat like rain through a gutter.

The young enthusiast ardently admired the man whose life belonged to others, and in whom the habit of studying physical suffering had destroyed the manifestations of egoism. That evening, when Gobenheim, the Latournelles, and Butscha, Canalis, Ernest, and the Duc d'Herouville were gathered in the salon, they all congratulated the Mignon family on the hopes which Desplein encouraged.

"He is my friend," replied Ernest. "Ha, you are the little secretary?" "You are to know, monsieur, that I am no man's secretary. I have the honor to be of counsel to a supreme court of this kingdom." "I have the honor to salute Monsieur de La Briere," said Butscha. "I myself have the honor to be head clerk to Latournelle, chief councillor of Havre, and my position is a better one than yours.

"Butscha, my dear fellow, has gone to Paris. He heard some news of his father this morning on the quays, from a Swedish sailor. It seems the father went to the Indies and served a prince, or something, and he is now in Paris." "Lies! it's all a trick! infamous! I'll find that damned cripple if I've got to go express to Paris for him," cried Dumay.

"Liqueurs!" repeated Butscha with a wave of his hand, and the air of a sham virgin repelling seduction; "Ah, those poor deeds! one of 'em was a marriage contract; and that second clerk of mine is as stupid as as an epithalamium, and he's capable of digging his penknife right through the bride's paraphernalia; he thinks he's a handsome man because he's five feet six, idiot!"

"Do you mean to be only a baroness?" asked Butscha. "Or a viscountess?" said her father. "How could that be?" she asked quickly. "If you accept Monsieur de La Briere, he has enough merit and influence to obtain permission from the king to bear my titles and arms." "Oh, if it comes to disguising himself, he will not make any difficulty," said Modeste, scornfully.

The police gazette publishes tales, differing somewhat from those of Walter Scott, but ending tragically with blood, not ink. Happiness and virtue exist above and beyond both art and genius." "Bravo, Butscha!" cried Madame Latournelle. "What did he say?" asked Canalis of La Briere, failing to gather from the eyes and attitude of Mademoiselle Mignon the usual signs of artless admiration.