"Have you been sending bouquets to your fair ones, messieurs?" queried Mouillot; "that reminds me of an experience I had with a blockhead of a messenger. My mistress at that time was a very attractive woman, an amiable little creature of about twenty-two, who seemed barely eighteen. She was married, and an old aunt of her husband lived with her and was supposed to keep an eye on her, because they knew she was a little giddy. So that we had to act cautiously. My charmer had asked me to send her a bouquet, because she was going to a ball, to which I also was going. During the day, I bought a lovely bouquet at Mademoiselle Prévot's, then took a cab, and told the driver to take me to the faubourg where my mistress lived. I got out at the corner of a street, two or three hundred yards from her house, and looked about for a messenger. At last I spied one; he was a man fifty years old or more, very dirty, and with the general aspect of a drunkard, but still the probabilities were that he knew his business. I beckoned to him and led him into a doorway. He tried to look cunning when he saw that he was to carry a bouquet. I pointed out the house, and told him the number, then said: 'There's no concierge; you must go to the rear of the courtyard, where there is only one little door, at which you will ring. If the door is opened by a man, or by an old woman, you will say simply: "Here's the bouquet madame ordered of a flower girl, to be sent to her," and then come away without another word; but if it's a young woman, then you will say to her: "Here is the bouquet, madame; the gentleman who sent it is at the corner of the street yonder," and listen carefully to what she tells you to say to me. I will wait here for you. You understand! no blundering!'--My messenger assumed his sly expression once more, and replied: 'Never fear, monsieur; this isn't the first time I've carried a bouquet.'--And off he went with mine. I followed him with my eyes. I wasn't very easy in my mind, for the fellow looked so stupid that I was afraid of some blunder. To begin with, I saw that he passed the house, although I had pointed it out to him plainly enough; however, after going beyond it, he turned back and found it; he went in, and I waited. After several minutes, which seemed painfully long to me, my man came back with a self-satisfied air.--'Well,' I said, 'to whom did you give it?'--'Two children, nine or ten years old, opened the door, monsieur; one was a little girl, and the other a boy. "My little friends," I says to them; "here's a bouquet somebody gave me for your mother; will you go and tell her?"'--'Great God!' I cried; 'did I tell you that the lady had children? Well?'--'Then, monsieur, a lady came.'--'Young and pretty?'--'Not bad-looking, monsieur, according to my ideas.'--'It must have been the old woman, then; what did you say to her?'--'I says: "Madame, here's a bouquet that the flower girl hopes you'll accept; it