Will you have another sample of this prodigious imagination? It is raining, freezing; wretched weather. M. Joyeuse has taken the omnibus to go to his office. Finding himself seated opposite a sort of colossus, with the head of a brute and formidable biceps, M. Joyeuse, himself very small, very puny, with his portfolio on his knees, draws in his legs in order to make room for the enormous columns which support the monumental body of his neighbour. As the vehicle moves on and as the rain beats on the windows, M. Joyeuse falls into reverie. And suddenly the colossus opposite, whose face is kind after all, is very much surprised to see the little man change colour, look at him and grind his teeth, look at him with ferocious eyes, an assassin’s eyes. Yes, with the eyes of a veritable assassin, for at that moment M. Joyeuse is dreaming a terrible dream. He sees one of his daughters sitting there opposite him, by the side of this giant brute, and the wretch has put his arm round her waist under her cape. “Remove your hand, sir!” M. Joyeuse has already said twice over. The other has only sneered. Now he wishes to kiss Elise. “Ah, rascal!” Too feeble to defend his daughter, M. Joyeuse, foaming with rage, draws his knife from his pocket, stabs the insolent fellow full in the breast, and with head high goes off, strong in the right of an outraged father, to make his declaration at the nearest police-station. “I have just killed a man in an omnibus!” At the sound of his own voice actually uttering these sinister words, but not in the police-station, the poor fellow wakes us, guesses from the bewildered manner of the passengers that he must have spoken the words aloud, and very quickly takes advantage of the conductor’s call, “Saint-Philippe--Pantheon--Bastille--” to alight, feeling greatly confused, amid general stupefaction. This imagination constantly on the stretch, gave to M. Joyeuse a singular physiognomy, feverish and worn, in strong contrast with the general correct appearance of a subordinate clerk which he presented. In one day he lived so many passionate existences. The race is more numerous than one thinks of these waking dreamers, in whom a too restricted fate compresses forces unemployed and heroic faculties. Dreaming is the safety-valve through which all those expend themselves with terrible ebullitions, as of the vapour of a furnace and floating images that are forthwith dissipated into air. From these visions some return radiant, others exhausted and discouraged, as they find themselves once more on the every-day level. M. Joyeuse was of these latter, rising without ceasing to heights whence a man cannot but re-descend, somewhat bruised by the velocity of the transit.