"To my face--I'm well aware that mine is a valuable head," said Theophrastus, regarding Signor Petito with an air which grew stranger and stranger. "Do you know how much it is worth, Signor Petito, the _Child's_ head? No?... Well, since an opportunity offers, I'm going to tell you. And while I'm about it, I'll tell you a little story which may be useful to you. Come into the Sucking-Pig." "B--B--But this is the Café B--B--Boussets," stammered Signor Petito, who was growing frightened. "The mist has muddled you. You've missed your way among _all these ploughed fields_," said Theophrastus, sitting down on a bench before one of the tables. Then he laughed on a very sinister note, and went on: "So you wanted to annoy me, M. Petito. So much the worse for you. What will you have to drink? A glass of ratafia? The excellent Madame Taconet[1] who keeps this tavern has set aside a bottle for me which will warm your in'ards." [Footnote 1: Theophrastus was quite accurate in these historical details. I have discovered that a Madame Taconet did keep, two hundred years ago, the Sucking-Pig tavern, close to Porkers' chapel which was pulled down in 1800, and on its site the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette was erected. All this district, north west of the Boulevard des Italiens, was covered, two hundred years ago, with ploughed fields, market-gardens, country houses, and Porkers' village. The Sucking-Pig tavern had the worst of reputations, for Madame Taconet sheltered in it all the most abandoned ruffians in Paris.] And as a waiter in his white apron came up to the table, without a change of tone Theophrastus added, "Two draught lagers; and we don't want them all froth." Thus, without any transition, without even noticing it, did he join his present-day existence to his existence of two hundred years before. Signor Petito was already full of the liveliest regret at having insisted on accompanying a man who fancied he was in the Sucking-Pig tavern, when the waiter brought the beer and set it on the table. Theophrastus said, "My head is worth twenty thousand francs; and well you know it!" He accompanied the "And well you know it!" with a bang of his fist on the table which made the glasses ring and Signor Petito jump. "Don't be frightened, Signor Petito: your beer isn't spilt," Theophrastus went on in a jeering tone. "You know then, my good sir, that my head is worth twenty thousand francs; but you'd better act as if you didn't, or some unpleasantness will befall you. I promised you a story. Well, here it is: