"Make out my bill, and send my baggage to the depot. Take my ticket for Nancy; I shall not stop on the way. Here are two hundred francs, with which I want you to drink to the health of my son! He is called Victor, after me! He is counsellor of the Prefecture! I'd rather he were a soldier; but never mind! Ah! first get somebody to show me the way to the bank! I must go and get a million for him!" As there is no direct connection between Dantzic and Nancy, he was obliged to stop at Berlin. M. Hirtz, whom he met accidentally, told him that the scientific societies of the city were preparing an immense banquet in his honor; but he declined positively. "It's not," said he, "that I despise an opportunity to drink in good company, but Nature has spoken: her voice draws me on! The sweetest intoxication to all rightly constituted hearts is that of paternal love!" To prepare, his dear child for the joy of a return so little expected, he enclosed his million in an envelope addressed to M. Victor Langevin, with a long letter which closed thus: "A father's blessing is more precious than all the gold in the world! "VICTOR FOUGAS." The infidelity of Clementine Pichon touched his _amour-propre_ a little, but he soon consoled himself for it. "At least," thought he, "I'll not have to marry an old woman, when there's a young one waiting for me at Fontainebleau. And, moreover, my son has a name, and a very presentable name. Fougas would be a great deal better, but Langevin is not bad." He arrived, on the 2d of September, at six o'clock in the evening, at that large and beautiful but somewhat stupid city which constitutes the Versailles of Lorraine. His heart was beating fit to burst. To recuperate his energies, he took a good dinner. The landlord, when catechized at dessert, gave him the very best accounts of M. Victor Langevin: a man still young, married for the past six years, father of a boy and a girl, respected in the neighborhood, and prosperous in his affairs. "I was sure of it!" said Fougas. He poured down a bumper of a certain kirsch-wasser from the Black Forest, which he fancied delicious with his maccaroni. The same evening, M. Langevin related to his wife how, on returning from the club at ten o'clock, he had been brutally accosted by a drunken man. He at first took him for a robber, and prepared to defend himself; but the man contented himself with embracing him, and then ran away with all his might. This singular accident threw the two spouses into a series of conjectures, each less probable than the preceding. But as they were both young, and had been married barely seven years, they soon changed the subject.