Madame H--There are so many false reports set afloat. (A long silence.) Madame F--(in a discreet tone of voice)--After all, there are priests who have beards--the Capuchins, for instance. Madame H--Madame de V. has a beard right up to her eyes, so that counts for nothing, dear. Madame F--That counts for nothing. I do not think so. In the first place, Madame de V.'s beard is not a perennial beard; her niece told me that she sheds her moustaches every autumn. What can a beard be that can not stand the winter? A mere trifle. Madame H--A mere trifle that is horribly ugly, my dear. Madame F--Oh! if Madame de V. had only moustaches to frighten away people, one might still look upon her without sorrow, but-- Madame H--I grant all that. Let us allow that the Countess's moustache and imperial are a nameless species of growth. I do not attach much importance to the point, you understand. She has a chin of heartbreaking fertility, that is all. Madame F--To return to what we were saying, how is it that the men who are strongest, most courageous, most manly--soldiers, in fact--are precisely those who have most beard? Madame H--That is nonsense, for then the pioneers would be braver than the Generals; and, in any case, there is not in France, I am sure, a General with as much beard as a Capuchin. You have never looked at a Capuchin then? Madame F--Oh, yes! I have looked at one quite close. It is a rather funny story. Fancy Clementine's cook having a brother a Capuchin--an ex-jeweller, a very decent man. In consequence of misfortunes in business--it was in 1848, business was at a stand-still--in short, he lost his senses--no, he did not lose his senses, but he threw himself into the arms of Heaven. Madame H--Oh! I never knew that! When? Clementine-- Madame F--I was like you, I would not believe it, but one day Clementine said to me: "Since you will not believe in my Capuchin, come and see me tomorrow about three o'clock; he will be paying a visit to his sister. Don't have lunch first; we will lunch together." Very good. I went the next day with Louise, who absolutely insisted upon accompanying me, and I found at Clementine's five or six ladies installed in the drawing-room and laughing like madcaps. They had all come to see the Capuchin. "Well," said I, as I went in, when they all began to make signs to me and whisper, "Hush, hush!" He was in the kitchen. Madame H--And what was he like?