to the East, but I shall probably go there. The career to which my
family destine me will spare me, I trust, the annoyances of travelling
in a coucou before I reach your present age. When I once become a
personage I shall know how to maintain my station."

"'Et caetera punctum!'" crowed Mistigris, imitating the hoarse voice
of a young cock; which made Oscar's deliverance all the more absurd,
because he had just reached the age when the beard sprouts and the
voice breaks. "'What a chit for chat!'" added the rapin.

"Your family, young man, destine you to some career, do they?" said
Georges. "Might I ask what it is?"

"Diplomacy," replied Oscar.

Three bursts of laughter came from Mistigris, the great painter, and
the farmer. The count himself could not help smiling. Georges was
perfectly grave.

"By Allah!" he exclaimed, "I see nothing to laugh at in that. Though
it seems to me, young man, that your respectable mother is, at the
present moment, not exactly in the social sphere of an ambassadress.
She carried a handbag worthy of the utmost respect, and wore
shoe-strings which--"

"My mother, monsieur!" exclaimed Oscar, in a tone of indignation.
"That was the person in charge of our household."

"'Our household' is a very aristocratic term," remarked the count.