informed us--and as _balayeur_ he ought to have known whereof he
spoke--there were as many as three ladies of the former variety. One of
them he talked with often. She told him her story. She was a Russian, of
a very fine education, living peacefully in Paris up to the time that she
wrote to her relatives a letter containing the following treasonable
sentiment:

"_Je mennuie pour les neiges de Russie._"

The letter had been read by the French censor, as had B.'s letter; and
her arrest and transference from her home in Paris to La Ferte Mace
promptly followed. She was as intelligent as she was virtuous and had
nothing to do with her frailer sisters, so the Machine-Fixer informed us
with a quickly passing flash of joy. Which sisters (his little forehead
knotted itself and his big bushy eyebrows plunged together wrathfully)
were wicked and indecent and utterly despicable disgraces to their
sex--and this relentless Joseph fiercely and jerkily related how only the
day before he had repulsed the painfully obvious solicitations of a
Madame Potiphar by turning his back, like a good Christian, upon
temptation and marching out of the room, broom tightly clutched in
virtuous hand.

"_M'sieu Jean_" (meaning myself) "_savez-vous_"--with a terrific gesture
which consisted in snapping his thumbnail between his teeth--"_CA PUE!_"

Then he added: "And what would my wife say to me if I came home to her
and presented her with that which this creature had presented to me? They
are animals," cried the little Machine-Fixer; "all they want is a man.
They don't care who he is; they want a man. But they won't get me!" And
he warned us to beware.