“I think he is.”

He was very much at home in his overheated study, where he sat wrapped up in a dressing-gown and keeping one eye shut to strengthen the other.

After a moment’s hesitation he recognized me, and held out his hand.

“Ah! my Junian Latin.  How are you getting on?”

“I am all right, sir; it’s my Junian Latins who are not getting on.”

“You don’t say so.  We must look into that.  But before we begin—­I forget where you come from.  I like to know where people come from.”

“From La Chatre.  But I spend my vacations at Bourges with my Uncle Mouillard.”

“Yes, yes, Mouillart with a t, isn’t it?”

“No, with a d.”

“I asked, you know, because I once knew a General Mouillart who had been through the Crimea, a charming man.  But he can not have been a relative, for his name ended with a t.”

My good tutor spoke with a delightful simplicity, evidently wishing to be pleasant and to show some interest in me.

“Are you married, young man?”

“No, sir; but I have no conscientious objections.”

“Marry young.  Marriage is the salvation of young men.  There must be plenty of pretty heiresses in Bourges.”

“Heiresses, yes.  As to their looks, at this distance—­”

“Yes, I understand, at this distance of course you can’t tell.  You should do as I did; make inquiries, go and see.  I went all the way to Forez myself to look for my wife.”

“Madame Flamaran comes from Forez?”

“Just so; I stayed there a fortnight, fourteen days exactly, in the middle of term-time, and brought back Sidonie.  Bourges is a nice town.”

“Yes, in summer.”

“Plenty of trees.  I remember a grand action I won there.  One of my learned colleagues was against me.  We had both written opinions, diametrically opposed, of course.  But I beat him—­my word, yes!”

“I dare say.”

“My boy, there was nothing left of him.  Do you know the case?”

“No.”

“A magnificent case!  My notes must be somewhere about; I will get them out for you.”

The good man beamed.  Evidently he had not had a talk all day, and felt he must expand and let himself out to somebody.  I appeared in the nick of time, and came in for all his honey.  He rose, went to a bookcase, ran his eye along a shelf, took down a volume, and began, in a low tone:  “’Cooperation is the mighty lever upon which an effete society relies to extricate itself from its swaddling-clothes and take a loftier flight.’  Tut, tut!  What stuff is this?  I beg your pardon.  I was reading from a work on moral philosophy.  Where the deuce is my opinion?”

He found it and, text in hand, began a long account of the action, with names, dates, moments of excitement, and many quotations in extenso.

“Yes, my young friend, two hundred and eighteen thousand francs did I win in that action for Monsieur Prebois, of Bourges; you know Prebois, the manufacturer?”