With some horses.' 'Did you, indeed ?' I said.

'Capital.' I asked him if he didn't atrociously miss the life of the Quarter, and he surprised me by saying that he never had lived it.

He had been en pension instead with a dear old professor of chemistry and his family at Puteaux, and used to go in and out.

A smile came into his eyes at the remembrance, and he told me one after the other idyllic little stories of the old professor and madame.

Madame and the omelet--madame and the melon--M.