"So I suppose, Monsieur Lustucru; for your hash looks very nice. I should like it myself, and I've half a mind to taste it, to set Moumouth an example." At this, Father Lustucru, in spite of his hardness, could not help trembling. For a minute he was horrified at his crime, and cried hastily:-- [Illustration: "Don't touch it, I beg of you."] "Don't touch it, I beg of you!" "Why not? Is there anything wrong in the hash?" "No, certainly not," stammered Father Lustucru; "but what has been prepared for a cat should not serve for a Christian. It is necessary to guard propriety, and not trifle with the dignity of human nature." Mother Michel accepted this reasoning, and said, a little snappishly:-- "Very well; Moumouth may suit himself! I do not wish to yield to all his fancies, and I shall not give him anything else." The following day the hash was still uneaten. The steward had hoped that the cat, pressed by hunger, would have thrown himself upon the poisoned food; but Moumouth knew how to suffer. He put up with abstinence, lived on scraps and crumbs of bread, and recoiled with terror every time that his guardian offered him the fatal plate, which finally remained forgotten in a corner of the closet in the antechamber. [Illustration: The Fatal Plate remains forgotten.] Father Lustucru, seeing that his plot had not succeeded, was more irritable than ever. The desire to rid himself of Moumouth became a fixed idea with him, a passion, a monomania; he dreamed of it day and night. Each letter in which Madame de la Grenouillere demanded news of the cat and repeated her promise of recompense to Mother Michel, each sign of interest given by the Countess to her two favorites, increased the blind fury of their enemy. He thought of the most infernal plans to demolish Moumouth without risk to himself, but none of them seemed sufficiently safe and expeditious. Finally he decided on this one:-- [Illustration: Louis XIV.] On a heavy pedestal, in the chamber of Mother Michel, was a marble bust of Louis XIV., represented with a Roman helmet and a peruke interlaced with laurel-leaves. Behind this bust was a round window, which looked upon the staircase; and just in front of the pedestal was the downy cushion that served as a bed for Moumouth, who would certainly have been crushed if the bust had taken it into its head to topple over. One night Lustucru stole noiselessly into the chamber of Mother Michel, opened the round window, which he was careful to leave ajar, and retired silently. At midnight, when everybody was asleep in the house, he took one of those long brooms, commonly called a wolf-head, placed himself on the staircase opposite the small window, rested his back firmly against the banister, and, with the aid of the wolf-head, pushed over the bust, which tumbled with a loud crash on the cushion beneath. [Illustration: Downfall of Louis XIV.]