I did not get back to New Orleans till late in the fall. In the office they told me that Manouvrier had been in twice to see if I had returned, and they had promised to send him word of my arrival. But I said no, and went to see him. I found new lines of care on his brow, but the old kindness was still in his eye. We exchanged a few words of greeting and inquiry, and then there came a pause, which I broke. "Well, stuffing birds better than ever, I suppose." "Naw," he looked around upon his work, "I dawn't think. I dunno if I stoff him quite so good like biffo'." Another pause. Then, "I think I mek out what I do wid doze money now." "Indeed," said I, and noticed that his face was averted from his wife. She lifted her eyes to his broad back with a quizzical smile, glanced at me knowingly, and dropped them again upon her sewing, sighed: "Ah-bah!" Then she suddenly glanced at me with a pretty laugh and added, "Since all that time he dunno what he goin' to make with it. If he trade with it I thing he don't stoff bird no mo', and I thing he lose it bis-ide--ha, ha, ha!--and if he keep it all time lock in doze bank I thing, he jiz well not have it." She laughed again. But he quite ignored her and resumed, as if out of a revery, "Yass, at de las' I mek dat out." And the wife interrupted him in a tone that was like the content of a singing hen. "I think it don't worth while to leave it to our chillun, en't it?" "Ah!" said the husband, entirely to me, "daz de troub'! You see?--we dawn't got some ba-bee'! Dat neveh arrive to her. God know' dass not de fault of us." "Yass," put in his partner, smiling to her needle, "the good God know' that verrie well." And the pair exchanged a look of dove-like fondness. "Yass," Manouvrier mused aloud once more, "I think I build my ole woman one fine house." "Ah! I don't want!" "But yass! Foudre tonnerre! how I goin' spend her else? w'iskee? hosses? women? what da dev'l! Naw, I build a fine 'ouse. You see! she want dat house bad enough when she see her. Yass; fifty t'ousan' dollah faw house and twenty-five t'ousan'"--he whisked his thumb at me and I said for him, "Yes, twenty-five thousand at interest to keep up the establishment." "Yass. Den if Pastropbon go first to dat boneyard--" And out went his thumb again, while his hairy lip curled at the grim prospect of beating Fate the second time, and as badly, in the cemetery, as the first time, in the lottery.