impossible to catch a single word. The conversation recommenced, or
rather finished by a sort of inference.

"So, your Adolphe is jealous?"

"Jealous of whom? We never leave each other, and that, in itself, is
an annoyance. I can't stand it. I don't dare to gape. I am expected to
be forever enacting the woman in love. It's fatiguing."

"Caroline?"

"Well?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Resign myself. What are you?

"Fight the customs office."

This little trouble tends to prove that in the matter of personal
deception, the two sexes can well cry quits.



DISAPPOINTED AMBITION.


I. CHODOREILLE THE GREAT.

A young man has forsaken his natal city in the depths of one of the