“Ha! here’s Pere Leger,” cried the inn-keeper, when the coach pulled up before the door. “Do you breakfast?” “Always once a day,” said the fat farmer; “and I’ll break a crust here and now.” “Give us a good breakfast,” cried Georges, twirling his cane in a cavalier manner which excited the admiration of poor Oscar. But that admiration was turned to jealousy when he saw the gay adventurer pull out from a side-pocket a small straw case, from which he selected a light-colored cigar, which he proceeded to smoke on the threshold of the inn door while waiting for breakfast. “Do you smoke?” he asked of Oscar. “Sometimes,” replied the ex-schoolboy, swelling out his little chest 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. “Twenty francs for his breakfast!” cried Oscar; “in all, more than thirty-odd francs since we started!” Killed by a sense of his inferiority, Oscar sat down on a stone post, lost in a revery which did not allow him to perceive that his trousers, drawn up by the effect of his position, showed the point of junction between the old top of his stocking and the new “footing,”--his mother’s handiwork.