isn't only being a good boozer. We've got to look ahead and have a
broad spirit, as Monsieur Joseph says. Tolerantness! We all want it,
eh?"

"You're a good sort," I say.

"I'm a man, like everybody," proudly replies Crillon. "It's not that I
hold by accustomary ideas; I'm not an antiquitary, but I don't like to
single-arise myself. If I'm a botcher in life, it's cos I'm the same
as others--no less," he says, straightening up. And standing still
more erect, he adds, "_Nor_ no more, neither!"

When we are not chatting we read aloud. There is a very fine library
at the factory, selected by Madame Valentine Gozlan from works of an
educational or moral kind, for the use of the staff. Marie, whose
imagination goes further afield than mine, and who has not my
anxieties, directs the reading. She opens a book and reads aloud while
I take my ease, looking at the pastel portrait which hangs just
opposite the window. On the glass which entombs the picture I see the
gently moving and puffing reflection of the fidgety window curtains,
and the face of that glazed portrait becomes blurred with broken
streaks and all kinds of wave marks.

"Ah, these adventures!" Marie sometimes sighs, at the end of a chapter;
"these things that never happen!"

"Thank Heaven," I cry.

"Alas," she replies.