to mistake them; you must be on speaking terms before you can be said to
have established an acquaintance.

For this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to gird up his loins considerably
before he could bring himself to the point of exchanging ideas with
Madame Bouclet on the subject of this Corporal and this Bebelle. But
Madame Bouclet looking in apologetically one morning to remark, that, O
Heaven! she was in a state of desolation because the lamp-maker had not
sent home that lamp confided to him to repair, but that truly he was a
lamp-maker against whom the whole world shrieked out, Mr. The Englishman
seized the occasion.

"Madame, that baby--"

"Pardon, monsieur. That lamp."

"No, no, that little girl."

"But, pardon!" said Madame Bonclet, angling for a clew, "one cannot light
a little girl, or send her to be repaired?"

"The little girl--at the house of the barber."

"Ah-h-h!" cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the idea with her
delicate little line and rod. "Little Bebelle? Yes, yes, yes! And her
friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes, yes! So genteel of him,--is it
not?"

"He is not--?"