“Horrid fellow, and ‘horrider bellow,’” put in Mistigris.

“Ha! good,” said Georges, laughing.

“After being a corsair, and probably a pirate, he thought no more of spitting a Christian on his dagger than I did of spitting on the ground,” continued Schinner.  “So that was how the land lay.  The old wretch had millions, and was hideous with the loss of an ear some pacha had cut off, and the want of an eye left I don’t know where.  ‘Never,’ said the little Diafoirus, ’never does he leave his wife, never for a second.’  ’Perhaps she’ll want your services, and I could go in your clothes; that’s a trick that has great success in our theatres,’ I told him.  Well, it would take too long to tell you all the delicious moments of that lifetime—­to wit, three days—­which I passed exchanging looks with Zena, and changing linen every day.  It was all the more violently titillating because the slightest motion was significant and dangerous.  At last it must have dawned upon Zena’s mind that none but a Frenchman and an artist was daring enough to make eyes at her in the midst of the perils by which she was surrounded; and as she hated her hideous pirate, she answered my glances with delightful ogles fit to raise a man to the summit of Paradise without pulleys.  I attained to the height of Don Quixote; I rose to exaltation! and I cried:  ’The monster may kill me, but I’ll go, I’ll go!’ I gave up landscape and studied the ignoble dwelling of the Uscoque.  That night, changed linen, and put on the most perfumed shirt I had; then I crossed the street, and entered—­”

“The house?” cried Oscar.

“The house?” echoed Georges.

“The house,” said Schinner.

“Well, you’re a bold dog,” cried farmer Leger.  “I should have kept out of it myself.”

“Especially as you could never have got through the doorway,” replied Schinner.  “So in I went,” he resumed, “and I found two hands stretched out to meet mine.  I said nothing, for those hands, soft as the peel of an onion, enjoined me to silence.  A whisper breathed into my ear, ’He sleeps!’ Then, as we were sure that nobody would see us, we went to walk, Zena and I, upon the ramparts, but accompanied, if you please, by a duenna, as hideous as an old portress, who didn’t leave us any more than our shadow; and I couldn’t persuade Madame Pirate to send her away.  The next night we did the same thing, and again I wanted to get rid of the old woman, but Zena resisted.  As my sweet love spoke only Greek, and I Venetian, we couldn’t understand each other, and so we quarrelled.  I said to myself, in changing linen, ’As sure as fate, the next time there’ll be no old woman, and we can make it all up with the language of love.’  Instead of which, fate willed that that old woman should save my life!  You’ll hear how.  The weather was fine, and, not to create suspicion, I took a turn at landscape,—­this was after our quarrel was made up, you understand.  After walking along the ramparts for some time, I