murder was out, “I wish you had said so in the beginning. It would have saved me a very bad quarter of an hour.”

“Young man,” severely replied Monsieur Bouchard, “I had not the slightest wish to save you a bad quarter of an hour.”

“So it seems; but I will tell you just how it stands. You know I am stationed at Melun——”

[44]“I have known that fact ever since I knew you.”

[44]

“Very well, sir. There is a music hall at Melun—the Pigeon House—with a garden back of it, kept by one Michaux, a rascal, if ever I saw one. Now, it’s very dull at Melun the evenings I am on duty and can’t get back to Léontine in Paris, and it’s a small place, and quite naturally, when one hears the music going at the Pigeon House, and sees the lights flashing and the people eating and drinking under the trees on the terrace garden, it’s quite natural, I say, to drop in there for the evening.”

“Quite natural for you, sir. Go on, Monsieur le Capitaine.”

De Meneval restrained his impulse to brain Monsieur Bouchard, sitting so sternly and primly before him, and kept on:

[45-46] 

[45-46]

And the girls are permitted to come out in their stage costumes, to have an ice or a glass of wine.

“Then there is the garden—jolly place, with electric lights—where you can get a pretty fair meal. It is quite[47] unique—nothing like it in Paris or anywhere else that I can think of, and I’ve seen a good many—” here de Meneval hastily checked himself. “It’s quite the thing to give suppers to the young ladies of the ballet—and some of them are not so young, either—in the gardens. The proprietor, of course, encourages it, and the girls are permitted to come out in their stage costumes to have an ice or a glass of wine. All the fellows in my regiment do it; it’s considered quite the thing, and their mothers and sisters come out to the Pigeon House to see them do it. If it wasn’t for the support given the place by the garrison it would have to close up, and then Melun would be duller than ever. The Pigeon House is unconventional, but perfectly respectable.”

[47]

“Possibly,” drily replied Monsieur Bouchard, “but 

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