"But I am not so silly," said the old lady, interrupting her brother
in her turn, "as to expect office-holders to come to a meeting the
object of which is to give another deputy to the Opposition. For all
that, Antonin Goulard, Simon's comrade and schoolmate, would be very
well pleased to see him a deputy because--"

"Come, sister, leave our own business of politics to us men. Where is
Simon?"

"He is dressing," she answered. "He was wise not to breakfast, for he
is very nervous. It is queer that, though he is in the habit of
speaking in court, he dreads this meeting as if he were certain to
meet enemies."

"Faith! I have often had to face masked batteries, and my soul--I
won't say my body--never quailed; but if I had to stand there," said
the old soldier, pointing to the tea-table, "and face forty bourgeois
gaping at me, their eyes fixed on mine, and expecting sonorous and
correct phrases, my shirt would be wringing wet before I could get out
a word."

"And yet, my dear father," said Simon Giguet, entering from the
smaller salon, "you really must make that effort for me; for if there
is a man in the department of the Aube whose voice is all-powerful it
is assuredly you. In 1815--"

"In 1815," said the little old man, who was wonderfully well
preserved, "I did not have to speak; I simply wrote out a little
proclamation which brought us two thousand men in twenty-four hours.
But it is a very different thing putting my name to a paper which is