“So does mine; that is, he smokes.”

“But mine, dear, uses it as they say Napoleon did:  in short, he chews, and I hold tobacco in horror.  The monster found it out, and went without out it for seven months.”

“All men have their habits.  They absolutely must use something.”

“You have no idea of the tortures I endure.  At night I am awakened with a start by one of my own sneezes.  As I go to sleep my motions bring the grains of snuff scattered over the pillow under my nose, I inhale, and explode like a mine.  It seems that Armand, the wretch, is used to these surprises, and doesn’t wake up.  I find tobacco everywhere, and I certainly didn’t marry the customs office.”

“But, my dear child, what does this trifling inconvenience amount to, if your husband is kind and possesses a good disposition?”

“He is as cold as marble, as particular as an old bachelor, as communicative as a sentinel; and he’s one of those men who say yes to everything, but who never do anything but what they want to.”

“Deny him, once.”

“I’ve tried it.”

“What came of it?”

“He threatened to reduce my allowance, and to keep back a sum big enough for him to get along without me.”

“Poor Stephanie!  He’s not a man, he’s a monster.”

“A calm and methodical monster, who wears a scratch, and who, every night—­”

“Well, every night—­”

“Wait a minute!—­who takes a tumbler every night, and puts seven false teeth in it.”

“What a trap your marriage was!  At any rate, Armand is rich.”

“Who knows?”

“Good heavens!  Why, you seem to me on the point of becoming very unhappy—­or very happy.”

“Well, dear, how is it with you?”

“Oh, as for me, I have nothing as yet but a pin that pricks me:  but it is intolerable.”

“Poor creature!  You don’t know your own happiness:  come, what is it?”

Here the young woman whispered in the other’s ear, so that it was impossible to catch a single word.  The conversation recommenced, or rather finished by a sort of inference.

“So, your Adolphe is jealous?”

“Jealous of whom?  We never leave each other, and that, in itself, is an annoyance.  I can’t stand it.  I don’t dare to gape.  I am expected to be forever enacting the woman in love.  It’s fatiguing.”

“Caroline?”

“Well?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Resign myself.  What are you?

“Fight the customs office.”

This little trouble tends to prove that in the matter of personal deception, the two sexes can well cry quits.

DISAPPOINTED AMBITION.

I. CHODOREILLE THE GREAT.

A young man has forsaken his natal city in the depths of one of the departments, rather clearly marked by M. Charles Dupin.  He felt that glory of some sort awaited him:  suppose that of a painter, a novelist, a journalist, a poet, a great statesman.