"You will be brought up with a round turn, you and your newspapers.
I'll bet you won't get further than Poitiers before the police will
nab you."

"What will you bet?"

"A shawl."

"Done! If I lose that shawl I'll go back to the article Paris and the
hat business. But as for getting the better of Gaudissart--never!
never!"

And the illustrious traveller threw himself into position before
Jenny, looked at her proudly, one hand in his waistcoat, his head at
three-quarter profile,--an attitude truly Napoleonic.

"Oh, how funny you are! what have you been eating to-night?"

Gaudissart was thirty-eight years of age, of medium height, stout and
fat like men who roll about continually in stage-coaches, with a face
as round as a pumpkin, ruddy cheeks, and regular features of the type
which sculptors of all lands adopt as a model for statues of
Abundance, Law, Force, Commerce, and the like. His protuberant stomach
swelled forth in the shape of a pear; his legs were small, but active
and vigorous. He caught Jenny up in his arms like a baby and kissed
her.

"Hold your tongue, young woman!" he said. "What do you know about
Saint-Simonism, antagonism, Fourierism, criticism, heroic enterprise,
or woman's freedom? I'll tell you what they are,--ten francs for each