This is what I had to say. And now, having made these declarations in all frankness, let us return to work with all speed. My preface will seem a little short, and the curious reader will seek in vain therein the anticipated piquancy. So much the worse for him. Brief as this page may be, it is three times too long for me. Prefaces have this disadvantage, that they prevent one from writing books. ALPHONSE DAUDET. I. DOCTOR JENKINS' PATIENTS. Standing on the stoop of his little house on Rue de Lisbonne, freshly shaved, with sparkling eye, lips slightly parted, long hair tinged with gray falling over a broad coat-collar, square-shouldered, robust, and sound as an oak, the illustrious Irish doctor, Robert Jenkins, chevalier of the Medjidie and of the distinguished order of Charles III. of Spain, member of several learned and benevolent societies, founder and president of the Work of Bethlehem,--in a word, Jenkins, the Jenkins of the Jenkins Arsenical Pills, that is to say, the fashionable physician of the year 1864, and the busiest man in Paris, was on the point of entering his carriage, one morning toward the end of November, when a window on the first floor looking on the inner courtyard was thrown open, and a woman's voice timidly inquired: "Shall you return to breakfast, Robert?" Oh! what a bright, affectionate smile it was that suddenly illumined that handsome, apostle-like face, and how readily one could divine, in the loving good-morning that his eyes sent up to the warm white peignoir visible behind the parted hangings, one of those tranquil, undoubting conjugal passions, which custom binds with its most flexible and strongest bonds. "No, Madame Jenkins"--he loved to give her thus publicly her title of legitimate wife, as if he felt a secret satisfaction therein, a sort of salve to his conscience with respect to the woman who made life so attractive to him--"No, do not expect me this morning. I am to breakfast on Place Vendome." "Ah! yes, the Nabob," said the lovely Madame Jenkins, with a very marked inflection of respect for that personage out of the _Thousand and One Nights_, of whom all Paris had been talking for a month; then, after a moment's hesitation, she whispered between the heavy hangings, very softly, very lovingly, for the doctor's ear alone: "Be sure and not forget what you promised me." It was probably a promise very difficult to keep, for, at the reminder, the apostle's brows contracted, his smile froze upon his lips, his whole face assumed an incredibly harsh expression; but it was a matter of a moment. The faces of these fashionable physicians become very expert in lying, by the bedsides of their wealthy patients. With his most affectionate, most cordial manner, and showing a row of dazzling teeth, he replied: "What I promised shall be done, Madame Jenkins. Now, go in at once and close your window. The mist is cold this morning."