"We'll see about that. What is it?" "Tell me first where my uncle is." "Smoking his pipe out under the arbour." "All right! Wait for me here, Mamma Barbancon, and prepare your mind for something startling." "Something startling, M. Olivier?" "Yes, something monstrous--unheard-of--impossible!" "Monstrous--unheard-of--" repeated Madame Barbancon, wonderingly, as she watched the young soldier dash off in pursuit of his uncle. "How are you, my lad? I didn't expect you so early," said the old captain, holding out his hand to his nephew in pleased surprise. "Home so soon! But so much the better!" "So much the better!" retorted Olivier, gaily. "On the contrary, you little know what is in store for you. Courage, uncle, courage!" "Stop your nonsense, you young scoundrel!" "Close your eyes, and now, 'forward march!'" "Forward march? Against whom?" "Against Mother Barbancon, my brave uncle." "But why?" "To break the news that--that--that I have invited--some one to dinner." "The devil!" exclaimed the veteran, recoiling a step or two in evident dismay. "To dinner--to-day," continued the young lieutenant. "The devil!" reiterated the veteran, recoiling three steps this time. "Moreover, my guest--is a duke," continued Olivier. "A duke! We are lost!" faltered the veteran. And this time he entirely vanished from sight in his verdant refuge, where he seemed as resolved to maintain his stand as if in some impregnable fortress. "May the devil and all his imps seize me if I undertake to announce any such fact as this to Mother Barbancon!" "What, uncle,--an officer of marines--afraid?" "But you've no idea what a scrape you've got yourself into, young man! It's a desperate case, I tell you. You don't know Madame Barbancon. But, good heavens, here she comes now!" "Our retreat is cut off, uncle," laughed the young man, as Madame Barbancon, whose curiosity had been excited to such a degree that she could wait no longer, appeared in the entrance to the arbour. "My guest will be here in an hour at the very latest, and we needs must conquer or perish of hunger,--you and I and my guest, whose name, I ought to tell you, is the Duc de Senneterre." "It's no affair of mine, unhappy boy," responded the commander. "Tell her yourself; here she is." But Olivier only laughed, and, turning to the dreaded housekeeper, exclaimed: "My uncle has something to tell you, Madame Barbancon." "There's not a word of truth in what he says," protested the veteran, wiping the sweat from his brow with his checked handkerchief. "It is Olivier who has something to tell you." "Come, come, uncle, Mother Barbancon is not as dangerous as she looks. Make a clean breast of it." "It is your affair, my boy. Get out of the scrape as best you can." The housekeeper, after having glanced first at the uncle and then at the nephew with mingled curiosity and anxiety, at last asked, turning to her employer: "What is it, monsieur?"