'Next Thursday? No, I think not,' answered Dubuche.

'I am obliged to go to a dance at a family's I know.'

'Where you expect to get hold of a dowry, I suppose?'

'Well, it wouldn't be such a bad spec.'

He shook the ashes from his pipe on to his left palm, and then,
suddenly raising his voice--'I almost forgot. I have had a letter from
Pouillaud.'

'You, too!--well, I think he's pretty well done for, Pouillaud.
Another good fellow gone wrong.'

'Why gone wrong? He'll succeed his father; he'll spend his money
quietly down there. He writes rationally enough. I always said he'd
show us a thing or two, in spite of all his practical jokes. Ah! that
beast of a Pouillaud.'

Sandoz, furious, was about to reply, when a despairing oath from
Claude stopped him. The latter had not opened his lips since he had so
obstinately resumed his work. To all appearance he had not even
listened.

'Curse it--I have failed again. Decidedly, I'm a brute, I shall never
do anything.' And in a fit of mad rage he wanted to rush at his
picture and dash his fist through it. His friends had to hold him
back. Why, it was simply childish to get into such a passion. Would
matters be improved when, to his mortal regret, he had destroyed his