not probably.”

“Good heavens, sir! you are mistaken. Léontine has been teasing me[48] for a month past to take her out there to supper some evening, and I’ve promised to do so this very next week. Do you think I’d take my wife to any place that wasn’t respectable?”

[48]

De Meneval was getting warm over this, and Monsieur Bouchard was forced to admit that he supposed the Pigeon House was respectable.

“But that doesn’t prevent these jolly little suppers to the young ladies of the ballet, and especially those given to them by the officers. I assure you it is mere harmless eating and drinking. The poor girls have to work hard, and when they get through of an evening I dare say very few of them have two francs to buy something to eat. So a number of us have got into the way of giving these poor souls supper after the performance. Even Major Fallière goes to these suppers, and you know his nickname in the regiment.”

“No, I know of him only as a very correct, middle-aged man. I wish you[49] had the same sort of reputation as Major Fallière.”

[49]

“Well, he is called by the juniors old P. M. P.—that is to say, the Pink of Military Propriety. And Fallière is my chum, and he goes to these little suppers.”

De Meneval brought this out with an air of triumph, but Monsieur Bouchard remained coldly unresponsive, and then de Meneval let the cat out of the bag.

“And I say, Monsieur Bouchard, the proprietor of the Pigeon House sent me in my account the other day—nineteen hundred francs nineteen centimes—and I haven’t got the money to pay it.”

De Meneval lay back and waited for the explosion. Monsieur Bouchard started from his chair, bawling:

“Nineteen hundred francs! And you no doubt expect me to pay it out of your wife’s income! I wonder what Léontine would say to this!”

[50]“That’s just what I’ve been wondering, too,” replied de Meneval, somewhat dolefully. “Léontine is the dearest girl in the world, but she is a woman, after all. I can prove to her that I have never given a franc’s worth to any other woman, except something to eat and drink, but all the same I’d just as soon she would think I spent my Melun evenings sitting in my quarters, with her picture before me and reading up on ballistics, as 

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