come to him at that time, and the task of nursing him devolved on me,
since when, on maternal principles, the lad has grown into my
affections."

"The lad of forty-odd!" sneered Duganne, unnoticed, apparently, by the
aged lady, however, at the moment, but not without amusing other hearers
by this sally. Dr. Durand was especially delighted.

"For he is a boy at heart," she said later, "this same Victor Favraud of
ours," gazing reprovingly around. "Indeed, he is the only American I
have ever seen who possessed real _gaieté de coeur_, and for that, I
imagine, he must thank his French extraction."

"Calhoun and cotton!" "Coal and codfish!" shouted the parrot at the top
of his voice. "Catfish and coffee!"--"Rice cakes for breakfast"--"All in
my eye, Betty Martin"--"Yarns and Yankees"--"Shad and
shin-plasters"--"Yams and yaller boys," and so on, in a string of the
most irrelevant alliteration and folly, that, like much other nonsense,
evoked peals of laughter by its unexpected utterance, and which at last
mollified and brought out Major Favraud himself, from his dignified
retirement.

"You have ruined the morals of my bird," said Madame Grambeau,
reproachfully. "Approach, Favraud, and justify yourself. In former times
his discourse was discreet. He knew many wise proverbs and polite
salutations in French and English both, most of which he has discarded
in favor of your profane and foolish teachings. He is as bad as the
'Vert-vert' of Voltaire. I shall have to expel him soon, I fear."

"Danton, how can you so grieve your mistress?" remonstrated Major