"Very good," said Pere Leger to the inn-keeper. "You can harness that
horse you want to sell me into the cabriolet; we'll breakfast in peace
and overtake Pierrotin, and I can judge of the beast as we go along.
We can go three in your jolter."

To the count's surprise, Pierrotin himself rebridled the horses.
Schinner and Mistigris had walked on. Scarcely had Pierrotin overtaken
the two artists and was mounting the hill from which Ecouen, the
steeple of Mesnil, and the forests that surround that most beautiful
region, came in sight, when the gallop of a horse and the jingling of
a vehicle announced the coming of Pere Leger and the grandson of
Czerni-Georges, who were soon restored to their places in the coucou.

As Pierrotin drove down the narrow road to Moisselles, Georges, who
had so far not ceased to talk with the farmer of the beauty of the
hostess at Saint-Brice, suddenly exclaimed: "Upon my word, this
landscape is not so bad, great painter, is it?"

"Pooh! you who have seen the East and Spain can't really admire it."

"I've two cigars left! If no one objects, will you help me finish
them, Schinner? the little young man there seems to have found a whiff
or two enough for him."

Pere Leger and the count kept silence, which passed for consent.

Oscar, furious at being called a "little young man," remarked, as the
other two were lighting their cigars:

"I am not the aide-de-camp of Mina, monsieur, and I have not yet been