M. Charnot, who was rather tired, and also absorbed in Madeleine’s feats of cookery, cast disjointed remarks and ejaculations into the gaps in the conversation.

I knew my uncle well enough to feel sure that the end of the dinner would be quite unlike the beginning.

I was right.  During dessert, just as the Academician was singing the praises of a native delicacy, ‘la forestine’, my uncle, who had been revolving a few drops of some notable growth of Medoc in his glass for the last minute or two, stopped suddenly, and put down his glass on the table.

“My dear Monsieur Charnot,” said he, “I have a painful confession to make to you.”

“Eh?  What?  My dear friend, if it’s painful to you, don’t make it.”

“Fabien,” my uncle went on, “has behaved badly to me on certain occasions.  But I say no more of it.  His faults are forgotten.  But I have not behaved to him altogether as I should.”

“You, uncle?”

“Alas!  It is so, my dear child.  My practice, the family practice, which I faithfully promised your father to keep for you—­”

“You have sold it?”

My uncle buried his face in his hands.

“Last night, my poor child, only last night!”

“I thought so.”

“I was weak I listened to the prompting of anger; I have compromised your future.  Fabien, forgive me in your turn.”

He rose from the table, and came and put a trembling hand on my shoulder.

“No, uncle, you’ve not compromised anything, and I’ve nothing to forgive you.”

“You wouldn’t take the practice if I could still offer it to you?”

“No, uncle.”

“Upon your word?”

“Upon my word!”

M. Mouillard drew himself up, beaming: 

“Ah!  Thank you for that speech, Fabien; you have relieved me of a great weight.”

With one corner of his napkin he wiped away two tears, which, having arisen in time of war, continued to flow in time of peace.

“If Mademoiselle Jeanne, in addition to all her other perfections, brings you fortune, Fabien, if your future is assured—­”

“My dear Monsieur Mouillard,” broke in the Academician with ill-concealed satisfaction.  “My colleagues call me rich.  They slander me.  Works on numismatics do not make a man rich.  Monsieur Fabien, who made some investigations into the subject, can prove it to you.  No; I possess no more than an honorable competence, which does not give me everything, but lets me lack nothing.”

“Aurea mediocritas,” exclaimed my uncle, delighted with his quotation.  “Oh, that Horace!  What a fellow he was!”

“He was indeed.  Well, as I was saying, our daily bread is assured; but that’s no reason why my son-in-law should vegetate in idleness which I do not consider my due, even at my age.”

“Quite right.”

“So he must work.”

“But what is he to work at?”