Why spades? There is no sand at Marie-le-Bois. Why that fishing-rod? Not a river floweth within miles and miles of the Villa des Roses. And it must furthermore be revealed that the “wood” of Marie-le-Bois consists in reality of a few acres of shabby bushes, dead grass and gaunt trees; that the villa itself is a hideous, gritty little structure, rendered all the more uninviting by what the estate agent calls an “ornamental” turret, and that never a rose (never even a common sunflower) has bloomed in the scrap of waste ground joyously designated by M. Durand a “garden.” No matter; M. Durand, a simple, small bourgeois, is happy, his good wife rejoices, the three children run wild in the hot, dusty roads, deaf old Amélie is to be heard singing in a feeble, cracked voice in the kitchen; and the Duvals and the Duponts—also of the small bourgeoisie—are equally happy and merry in the equally hideous and gritty villas named “My Pleasure” and “My Repose.” Between them they have hired a rough, bumpy field, in which they play croquet for hours at a time—the ladies in cotton wrappers and the gentlemen in their shirt-sleeves. But not enough mallets to go round and constant confusion as to whose turn it is to play. “It is Durand’s turn,” says Dupont. “No, it is Madame Durand’s,” states M. Duval. “No, it is my turn—I haven’t played for twenty minutes,” protests the shrill voice of little Marie Dupont. “Apparently it is somebody’s turn,” says M. Durand ironically. And then do the three gentlemen respectively declare that the “situation” is “extraordinary” and “abominable” and—yes, “sinister”; and then, also, do the three wives proclaim their lords “egoists” and—Oh dear me—“imbeciles,” and then (profiting by the dispute) do the many children of the Duponts and the Durands and Duvals kick about the balls, and hop over (or dislodge) the hoops, and (when reprimanded) burst into tears. “It’s mad,” cries M. Durand. “Auguste, you disgust me,” says Madame Dupont to her husband. “Mamma, Henri Durand has pulled my hair,” sobs little Germaine Duval. At length on goes the game. But ten minutes later the same confusion, the same cries: “It’s my turn,” and “No, it is the turn of Madame Dupont,” and “I’ve only played once in the last hour,” and “The situation is becoming more and more sinister.” Still, in the scraps of garden of the three villas there is peace. The gentlemen doze a great deal under their respective, their “own” anæmic trees. Flies buzz about them—but, as M. Durand observes, they are “country flies,” and therefore “innocent.” In the late afternoon M. Durand puts on his glasses, opens his _Petit Parisien_ and says: “Let us hear what is happening in Paris.” As a matter of fact, M. Durand can almost hear what is happening in Paris from his chair; but he studies his paper deeply and gives vent to exclamations of “Ah!” and “That dear, extraordinary Paris—always excited, never tranquil!” as though he were an exile in the remotest of foreign lands.