white was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, but it toned down
with the week.

"It is," repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell
countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the
bright morning sunlight,--"it is, my cherished Madame Bouclet, I think,
impossible!"

"Hey!" (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head.)
"But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!" retorted Madame Bouclet, a
compact little woman of thirty-five or so. "See then,--look there,--read!
'On the second floor Monsieur L'Anglais.' Is it not so?"

"It is so," said Monsieur Mutuel.

"Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out!" Madame Bouclet dismissed
him with a lively snap of her fingers.

The morning walk of Monsieur Mutuel was in the brightest patch that the
sun made in the Grande Place of a dull old fortified French town. The
manner of his morning walk was with his hands crossed behind him; an
umbrella, in figure the express image of himself, always in one hand; a
snuffbox in the other. Thus, with the shuffling gait of the Elephant
(who really does deal with the very worst trousers-maker employed by the
Zoological world, and who appeared to have recommended him to Monsieur
Mutuel), the old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had--of
course, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole; for was
he not an ancient Frenchman?

Being told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk and get