“And my parents believed they had educated me!” thought Oscar, endeavoring to smoke with better grace.

But his nausea was so strong that he was thankful when Mistigris filched his cigar, remarking, as he smoked it with evident satisfaction, “You haven’t any contagious diseases, I hope.”

Oscar in reply would fain have punched his head.

“How he does spend money!” he said, looking at Colonel Georges.  “Eight francs for Alicante and the cheese-cakes; forty sous for cigars; and his breakfast will cost him—­”

“Ten francs at least,” replied Mistigris; “but that’s how things are.  ‘Sharp stomachs make short purses.’”

“Come, Pere Leger, let us drink a bottle of Bordeaux together,” said Georges to the farmer.

“Twenty francs for his breakfast!” cried Oscar; “in all, more than thirty-odd francs since we started!”

Killed by a sense of his inferiority, Oscar sat down on a stone post, lost in a revery which did not allow him to perceive that his trousers, drawn up by the effect of his position, showed the point of junction between the old top of his stocking and the new “footing,” —­his mother’s handiwork.

“We are brothers in socks,” said Mistigris, pulling up his own trousers sufficiently to show an effect of the same kind,—­“’By the footing, Hercules.’”

The count, who overheard this, laughed as he stood with folded arms under the porte-cochere, a little behind the other travellers.  However nonsensical these lads might be, the grave statesman envied their very follies; he liked their bragging and enjoyed the fun of their lively chatter.

“Well, are you to have Les Moulineaux? for I know you went to Paris to get the money for the purchase,” said the inn-keeper to Pere Leger, whom he had just taken to the stables to see a horse he wanted to sell to him.  “It will be queer if you manage to fleece a peer of France and a minister of State like the Comte de Serizy.”

The person thus alluded to showed no sign upon his face as he turned to look at the farmer.

“I’ve done for him,” replied Pere Leger, in a low voice.

“Good!  I like to see those nobles fooled.  If you should want twenty thousand francs or so, I’ll lend them to you—­ But Francois, the conductor of Touchard’s six o’clock coach, told me that Monsieur Margueron was invited by the Comte de Serizy to dine with him to-day at Presles.”

“That was the plan of his Excellency, but we had our own little ways of thwarting it,” said the farmer, laughing.

“The count could appoint Monsieur Margueron’s son, and you haven’t any place to give,—­remember that,” said the inn-keeper.

“Of course I do; but if the count has the ministry on his side, I have King Louis XVIII.,” said Pere Leger, in a low voice.  “Forty thousand of his pictures on coin of the realm given to Moreau will enable me to buy Les Moulineaux for two hundred and sixty thousand, money down, before Monsieur de Serizy can do so.  When he finds the sale is made, he’ll be glad enough to buy the farm for three hundred and sixty thousand, instead of letting me cut it up in small lots right in the heart of his property.”