There we would catch huge olive-colored water-beetles, yellow underneath; red-bellied newts; green frogs, with beautiful spots and a splendid parabolic leap; gold and silver fish, pied with purply brown. I mention them in the order of their attractiveness. The fish were too tame and easily caught, and their beauty of too civilized an order; the rare, flat, vicious dytiscus "took the cake." Sometimes, even, we would walk through Boulogne to St. Cloud, to see the new railway and the trains--an inexhaustible subject of wonder and delight--and eat ices at the "Tete Noire" (a hotel which had been the scene of a terrible murder, that led to a cause celebre); and we would come back through the scented night, while the glowworms were shining in the grass, and the distant frogs were croaking in the Mare d'Auteuil. Now and then a startled roebuck would gallop in short bounds across the path, from thicket to thicket, and Medor would go mad again and wake the echoes of the new Paris fortification, which were still in the course of construction. [Illustration] He had not the gift of catching roebucks! If my father were of the party, he would yodel Tyrolese melodies, and sing lovely songs of Boieldieu, Herold, and Gretry; or "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or else the "Bay of Dublin" for Madame Seraskier, who had the nostalgia of her beloved country whenever her beloved husband was away. Or else we would break out into a jolly chorus and march to the tune-- _"Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain dans la soupe; Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain dans le vin!"_ Or else-- _"La--soupe aux choux--se fait dans la marmite; Dans--la marmite--se fait la soupe aux choux."_ which would give us all the nostalgia of supper. Or else, again, if it were too hot to sing, or we were too tired, M. le Major, forsaking the realms of fairy-land, and uncovering his high bald head as he walked, would gravely and reverently tell us of his great master, of Brienne, of Marengo, and Austerlitz; of the farewells at Fontainebleau, and the Hundred Days--never of St. Helena; he would not trust himself to speak to us of that! And gradually working his way to Waterloo, he would put his hat on, and demonstrate to us, by A+B, how, virtually, the English had lost the day, and why and wherefore. And on all the little party a solemn, awe-struck stillness would fall as we listened, and on some of us the sweet nostalgia of bed! Oh, the good old time!