In 1829 one of the last houses looking toward the sea, and which in all probability stands about the centre of the Ingouville to-day, was called, and perhaps is still called, “the Chalet.”  Originally it was a porter’s lodge with a trim little garden in front of it.  The owner of the villa to which it belonged,—­a mansion with park, gardens, aviaries, hot-houses, and lawns—­took a fancy to put the little dwelling more in keeping with the splendor of his own abode, and he reconstructed it on the model of an ornamental cottage.  He divided this cottage from his own lawn, which was bordered and set with flower-beds and formed the terrace of his villa, by a low wall along which he planted a concealing hedge.  Behind the cottage (called, in spite of all his efforts to prevent it, the Chalet) were the orchards and kitchen gardens of the villa.  The Chalet, without cows or dairy, is separated from the roadway by a wooden fence whose palings are hidden under a luxuriant hedge.  On the other side of the road the opposite house, subject to a legal privilege, has a similar hedge and paling, so as to leave an unobstructed view of Havre to the Chalet.

This little dwelling was the torment of the present proprietor of the villa, Monsieur Vilquin; and here is the why and the wherefore.  The original creator of the villa, whose sumptuous details cry aloud, “Behold our millions!” extended his park far into the country for the purpose, as he averred, of getting his gardeners out of his pockets; and so, when the Chalet was finished, none but a friend could be allowed to inhabit it.  Monsieur Mignon, the next owner of the property, was very much attached to his cashier, Dumay, and the following history will prove that the attachment was mutual; to him therefore he offered the little dwelling.  Dumay, a stickler for legal methods, insisted on signing a lease for three hundred francs for twelve years, and Monsieur Mignon willingly agreed, remarking,—­

“My dear Dumay, remember, you have now bound yourself to live with me for twelve years.”

In consequence of certain events which will presently be related, the estates of Monsieur Mignon, formerly the richest merchant in Havre, were sold to Vilquin, one of his business competitors.  In his joy at getting possession of the celebrated villa Mignon, the latter forgot to demand the cancelling of the lease.  Dumay, anxious not to hinder the sale, would have signed anything Vilquin required, but the sale once made, he held to his lease like a vengeance.  And there he remained, in Vilquin’s pocket as it were; at the heart of Vilquin’s family life, observing Vilquin, irritating Vilquin,—­in short, the gadfly of all the Vilquins.  Every morning, when he looked out of his window, Vilquin felt a violent shock of annoyance as his eye lighted on the little gem of a building, the Chalet, which had cost sixty thousand francs and sparkled like a ruby in the sun.  That comparison is very nearly exact.  The architect has constructed the cottage