“Good-evening, Mr. Frowenfeld.”

Joseph, looking brighter than when he sat unaccosted, rose and blushed.

“Mr. Frowenfeld, you know my uncle very well, I believe—­Agricole Fusilier—­long beard?”

“Oh! yes, sir, certainly.”

“Well, Mr. Frowenfeld, I shall be much obliged if you will tell him—­that is, should you meet him this evening—­that I wish to see him.  If you will be so kind?”

“Oh! yes, sir, certainly.”

Frowenfeld’s diffidence made itself evident in this reiterated phrase.

“I do not know that you will see him, but if you should, you know—­”

“Oh, certainly, sir!”

The two paused a single instant, exchanging a smile of amiable reminder from the horseman and of bashful but pleased acknowledgment from the one who saw his precepts being reduced to practice.

“Well, good-evening, Mr. Frowenfeld.”

M. Grandissime lifted his hat and turned.  Frowenfeld sat down.

“Bou zou, Miche Honore!” called the marchande.

“Comment to ye, Clemence?”

The merchant waved his hand as he rode away with his companion.

“Beau Miche, la,” said the marchande, catching Joseph’s eye.

He smiled his ignorance and shook his head.

“Dass one fine gen’leman,” she repeated. “Mo pa’le Angle,” she added with a chuckle.

“You know him?”

“Oh! yass, sah; Mawse Honore knows me, yass.  All de gen’lemens knows me.  I sell de calas; mawnin’s sell calas, evenin’s sell zinzer-cake. You know me” (a fact which Joseph had all along been aware of).  “Dat me w’at pass in rue Royale ev’y mawnin’ holl’in’ ’Be calas touts chauds,’ an’ singin’; don’t you know?”

The enthusiasm of an artist overcame any timidity she might have been supposed to possess, and, waiving the formality of an invitation, she began, to Frowenfeld’s consternation, to sing, in a loud, nasal voice.

But the performance, long familiar, attracted no public attention, and he for whose special delight it was intended had taken an attitude of disclaimer and was again contemplating the quiet groups of the Place d’Armes and the pleasant hurry of the levee road.

“Don’t you know?” persisted the woman.  “Yass, sah, dass me; I’s Clemence.”

But Frowenfeld was looking another way.

“You know my boy,” suddenly said she.

Frowenfeld looked at her.

“Yass, sah.  Dat boy w’at bring you de box of basilic lass Chrismus; dass my boy.”

She straightened her cakes on the tray and made some changes in their arrangement that possibly were important.

“I learned to speak English in Fijinny.  Bawn dah.”

She looked steadily into the apothecary’s absorbed countenance for a full minute, then let her eyes wander down the highway.  The human tide was turning cityward.  Presently she spoke again.