"WelI, what was it?"

"You must know, then, that my intended
has very pretty teeth, pearls of the finest water.
As I was admiring them, I took a small nut,
and mechanically offering it to her, said, 'My
dear Angèle'—her name is Angèle—'I will bet
you anything that you cannot, with those lovely
instruments, cut this nut in two without crushing
it.' Angèle changed colour and tossed back
her head so violently that it quite stupified
me."

"But why the deuce did you want your
intended to crack nuts with her teeth?"

"That's the very question I asked myself
afterwards. But never mind; I shall be a happy
man all the same."

Unluckily for his happiness, there happened
to be present in the café a baker, who had vainly
made love to the widow; and next morning,
when he met her servant, he made the most of
the joke that her mistress's fine set of teeth
were of no use for cracking nuts. The maid
insisted on an explanation, and was in a rage at
the implied suspicion; she assembled the gossips
(who are as plentiful in Batignolles as in other
small provincial towns), and rebutted the
accusation so vehemently, that everybody was firmly
convinced that Madame Angèle wore false teeth.
The charming widow, informed of the calumny
by her too zealous servant, felt the more
aggrieved, because her teeth, in fact, were very good
and very real. She closed her door against
Poitevin, who thus received punishment the first
for his pitiless qualifications.

Punishment the second came some time afterwards.
His regiment was inspected by a
lieutenant-general, with whom he had formerly been
intimate, and who now treated him with great
affability, and invited him to dinner. Alas! and
again alas! before the dinner, there was the
officers' déjeûner, and then the visit to the café,
one of the pleasantest moments of the day.
At the café, they chatted about the morning's
review and the lieutenant-general's recognition
of Poitevin, who received thereon the felicitations
of all his friends. Instead of tranquilly
accepting which, he must launch out into a
long panegyric of his early friend. "What a
man! What a brave fellow! When he was
only colonel, his soldiers regarded him as a
father. Every man would have laid down his
life for him."

"Be quiet, Poitevin, do be quiet," whispered
an old captain, who foresaw the coming qualification.

"Yes, captain, I understand," continued
Poitevin; "but you are aware that nobody can
utter a syllable against our worthy inspector."

"Yes, yes; everybody knows it. Only——"

At the fatal word "only," suggested by the
captain with the best intentions, to intimate
"Only you need not speak so loud"—at that
word, the lieutenant's terrible habit got the
upper hand, and before any one could stop him,
he proceeded at the top of his voice, "Only,
there is but a single fault in the whole of his
brilliant military career; he never nominates
any one for promotion except the sons of
marchionesses and baronesses."

All the officers present, sorry to hear such an
indiscreet sally, affected to burst out laughing,
in order to smother its effect; others even, to
divert attention, began talking loudly as soon as
Poitevin had uttered the word "only;" but
several waiters and civilians were present.

In the evening, when the unlucky lieutenant
was about to quit the lieutenant-general, who
had cordially welcomed him to his table, he
received, by way of adieu, this stunning address:

"My dear Poitevin, I had intended to have
included you on the promotion list, and I could
have obtained your appointment to a captaincy;
but as you are neither the son of a baroness
nor of a marchioness——"

"Fairly hit, general, and without spite or
malice," stoically replied poor Lieutenant
Correctif, who knew better how to wield and
manage his horse and his sabre, than his tongue.

Grand Godard was an excellent soldier, cool
and intrepid, circumspect as well as brave in the
field, brave as well as wise in garrison and camp;
but having attained no higher rank than brigadier
after seven years' service, he declined to
renew his engagement with the Chasseurs
d'Afrique, although flattering inducements were
held out to him. He instinctively felt that
fortune might have some better prize in store
even than a successful military career. Leaving
Africa with the intention of going to Paris, he
halted on the way in the south of France, to
accept a situation as écuyer, or riding-master, in
a riding-school for civilians, kept by an
ex-cavalry officer, who is ticketed with the name of
Bernard. Maria Bernard was tall and dark,
with black hair reflecting bluish tints, like a
raven's wing; Berthe Bernard was small, fair,
and delicate, and had received a distinguished
Parisian education. It is difficult to read these
descriptions of young heroines without thinking
of the qualities assigned to female complexion
and stature by the ungallant doggrel, ''Long
and lazy, little and loud, fair and foolish, dark
and proud." Grand Godard's intercourse with
the Bernard family became highly romantic, and
was terminated abruptly and romantically, by a
long though only temporary estrangement; for
the story ended happily, as it should do, with a
marriage in due form. Grand Godard himself
was dark, with big bright black eyes; with this
datum I leave constant reader to guess which
of the ladies fell to his happy lot. Which would
an artist or a dramatist assign to him?

From Provence, Grand Godard really went to
Paris, where, for some time, he had no need to
take walks to get an appetite; his attempts at
authorship procured him such earnings that he
had to angle in the Seine for little fish to keep
off starvation. On one occasion, a little above
Paris, he caught in its hole, by diving, an eel as
thick as his arm, which he sold for six francs,
which maintained him liberally for six whole
days. In Africa he had amused himself at the
blacksmith's forge, and fancied he had
discovered a new and better mode of tempering steel.