invitation. Be it so. _Bon appetit_."

"_Bah_!" said De Breze, catching Frederic's arm as he turned to depart.
"Of course I was but jesting. Only another day, when my pockets will be
empty, do think what an excellent thing a roasted dog is, and make up
your mind while Fox has still some little flesh on his bones."

"Flesh!" said Savarin, detaining them. "Look! See how right Voltaire was
in saying, 'Amusement is the first necessity of civilised man.' Paris
can do without bread Paris still retains Polichinello."

He pointed to the puppet-show, round which a crowd, not of children
alone, but of men-middle-aged and old-were collected; while sous were
dropped into the tin handed round by a squalid boy.

"And, _mon ami_," whispered De Breze to Lemercier, with the voice of a
tempting fiend, "observe how Punch is without his dog."

It was true. The dog was gone,--its place supplied by a melancholy
emaciated cat.

Frederic crawled towards the squalid boy. "What has become of Punch's
dog?"

"We ate him last Sunday. Next Sunday we shall have the cat in a pie,"
said the urchin, with a sensual smack of the lips.

"O Fox! Fox!" murmured Frederic, as the three men went slowly down
through the darkening streets--the roar of the Prussian guns heard afar,
while distinct and near rang the laugh of the idlers round the Punch