"Le Baton de M. Molard?" repeated the marchioness, not understanding in the least. "What is he talking about?" and then, all at once, the explanation of the mystery dawned upon her, and she exclaimed, in consternation: "Ah, I see! 'Le Baton de M. Molard' is 'Le Batard de Mauleon,' translated by Pierrot into his own language. I was quite right in wanting to write the title for him, but he would not hear of it." M. de Jonzac turned his eyes up towards the ceiling with a tragic gesture of despair. "He is incorrigible--absolutely hopeless," he said, half laughing and half vexed. "I can't help it, I am as I was made," said Pierrot, blushing furiously and very much annoyed. "And then, too, I didn't know what I was doing yesterday; we were almost upset going into Pont-sur-Loire." "Almost upset?" exclaimed Madame de Bracieux, "upset! why, how?" "Because Bijou had the insane idea of wanting to go down the Rue Rabelais with the coach; and so M. de Clagny went--the old fool." "Stop! that's enough!" interrupted the marchioness; "will you kindly speak more respectfully when you have anything to say about my old friend Clagny?" "Well, all the same, your old friend hasn't got his head screwed on very well, considering his age. He might have killed us; and, besides that, I can tell you we did kick up a shindy in the Rue Rabelais. The coach scraped against the curb-stones; all the kids were running along nearly under the horses' heels; then the sound of the horn brought all the women to the windows, and didn't they exclaim when they saw what it was. That part wasn't so bad, either, for there were some jolly pretty ones, I can tell you; weren't there, Paul?" As M. de Rueille appeared to be preoccupied, and did not answer, Pierrot turned to the abbe. "Weren't there, M. Courteil?" "I don't know," answered the abbe, with evident sincerity; "I was not noticing." Pierrot did not intend to give in. "Oh, well, Bijou noticed them anyhow, for I can tell you she _did_ look at them, and with eyes as sharp as needles, too; they shone like anything." "I?" she exclaimed, her pretty face turning suddenly red. "It was your fancy, Pierrot; I never saw anything. I was much too frightened." "Frightened of what?" asked the marchioness. "Why, of being upset, grandmamma. Pierrot is right about that; we were nearly upset." "He is right, too, in saying that it was an insane idea to want to go with a carriage and four horses down a wretched little street like that; however could you have had such an idea?" Bijou glanced at Jeanne Dubuisson, who, with her eyes fixed on the carpet, had turned very red, too, and was listening to the discussion without taking any part in it. "Oh, really, I don't know. I think it was M. de Clagny telling me that his horses were so well in hand that he could make them turn round on a plate. And so, as the Rue Rabelais is rather narrow and winding, I said: 'I am sure you could not go along Rue Rabelais.'"