"What-what is it? How should I know? I have done nothing, I will swear. I
don't know what is the matter with the umbrella."

"You have been playing tricks with it at the office; you have been
playing the fool and opening it, to show it off!" she screamed.

"I only opened it once, to let them see what a nice one it was, that is
all, I swear."

But she shook with rage, and got up one of those conjugal scenes which
make a peaceable man dread the domestic hearth more than a battlefield
where bullets are raining.

She mended it with a piece of silk cut out of the old umbrella, which was
of a different color, and the next day Oreille went off very humbly with
the mended article in his hand. He put it into a cupboard, and thought no
more of it than of some unpleasant recollection.

But he had scarcely got home that evening when his wife took the umbrella
from him, opened it, and nearly had a fit when she saw what had befallen
it, for the disaster was irreparable. It was covered with small holes,
which evidently proceeded from burns, just as if some one had emptied the
ashes from a lighted pipe on to it. It was done for utterly, irreparably.

She looked at it without a word, in too great a passion to be able to say
anything. He, also, when he saw the damage, remained almost dumfounded,
in a state of frightened consternation.

They looked at each other, then he looked at the floor; and the next
moment she threw the useless article at his head, screaming out in a