and assuming a jaunty air. Georges presented the open case to Oscar and Schinner. "Phew!" said the great painter; "ten-sous cigars!" "The remains of those I brought back from Spain," said the adventurer. "Do you breakfast here?" "No," said the artist. "I am expected at the chateau. Besides, I took something at the Lion d'Argent just before starting." "And you?" said Georges to Oscar. "I have breakfasted," replied Oscar. Oscar would have given ten years of his life for boots and straps to his trousers. He sneezed, he coughed, he spat, and swallowed the smoke with ill-disguised grimaces. "You don't know how to smoke," said Schinner; "look at me!" With a motionless face Schinner breathed in the smoke of his cigar and let it out through his nose without the slightest contraction of feature. Then he took another whiff, kept the smoke in his throat, removed the cigar from his lips, and allowed the smoke slowly and gracefully to escape them. "There, young man," said the great painter. "Here, young man, here's another way; watch this," said Georges, imitating Schinner, but swallowing the smoke and exhaling none. "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.