"Monsieur, Pere Fourchon's boy is here; he says they have caught the
otter, and wants to know if you would like it, or whether they shall
take it to the sub-prefect at Ville-aux-Fayes."

Emile Blondet, though himself a past-master of hoaxing, could not keep
his cheeks from blushing like those of a virgin who hears an
indecorous story of which she knows the meaning.

"Ha! ha! so you have hunted the otter this morning with Pere
Fourchon?" cried the general, with a roar of laughter.

"What is it?" asked the countess, uneasy at her husband's laugh.

"When a man of wit and intelligence is taken in by old Fourchon,"
continued the general, "a retired cuirassier need not blush for having
hunted that otter; which bears an enormous resemblance to the third
posthorse we are made to pay for and never see." With that he went off
into further explosions of laughter, in the midst of which he
contrived to say: "I am not surprised you had to change your boots
--and your trousers; I have no doubt you have been wading! The joke
didn't go as far as that with me,--I stayed on the bank; but then, you
know, you are so much more intelligent than I--"

"But you forget," interrupted Madame de Montcornet, "that I do not
know what you are talking of."

At these words, said with some pique, the general grew serious, and
Blondet told the story of his fishing for the otter.

"But if they really have an otter," said the countess, "those poor