imitating Schinner, but swallowing the smoke and exhaling none.

"And my parents believed they had educated me!" thought Oscar,
endeavoring to smoke with better grace.

But his nausea was so strong that he was thankful when Mistigris
filched his cigar, remarking, as he smoked it with evident
satisfaction, "You haven't any contagious diseases, I hope."

Oscar in reply would fain have punched his head.

"How he does spend money!" he said, looking at Colonel Georges. "Eight
francs for Alicante and the cheese-cakes; forty sous for cigars; and
his breakfast will cost him--"

"Ten francs at least," replied Mistigris; "but that's how things are.
'Sharp stomachs make short purses.'"

"Come, Pere Leger, let us drink a bottle of Bordeaux together," said
Georges to the farmer.

"Twenty francs for his breakfast!" cried Oscar; "in all, more than
thirty-odd francs since we started!"

Killed by a sense of his inferiority, Oscar sat down on a stone post,
lost in a revery which did not allow him to perceive that his
trousers, drawn up by the effect of his position, showed the point of
junction between the old top of his stocking and the new "footing,"
--his mother's handiwork.