"Alas! yes, monsieur--and by my own fault. I had so long heard emerald eyes praised that I wished for them, and ever since that time have lost my sight. I do not even know whether my eyes are as pretty as they have been said to be. Will you be so kind as to tell me what is your impression on the subject? Look at me. Do you think that emerald eyes go well with my face?" Alméric wished to say that he thought her eyes beautiful, to console her for having lost her sight, but the old beggar was inexorable. "Your eyes are abominably ugly!" he said, roughly. "Impossible!" replied the cat. "They _must_ shine?" "No!" cried the old man; "nothing shines out of its place! Take my advice--hide them, put on spectacles; and if ever you have any more emeralds, make them into rings and not into eyes." [Illustration: "FLY QUICKLY!"] And, once more, the young man could not refrain from laughing at this reflection. On quitting the dining-room, they entered a superb court paved in mosaic and surrounded by elegant columns. They there perceived a bird which, by its plumage, might have been taken for a vulture, but whose timid bearing had nothing of the bird of prey in it. "There is a vulture that, to me, has a very stupid look," observed the beggar. "Who are you, old fellow?" he added, addressing the vulture. "I am a vulture, a bird of prey; formerly a turkey, a farmyard bird. I wished to mount in rank and quit the sphere in which I won nothing but disrespect; but I repent--repent the change--for I cannot bring myself to devour them." "Devour whom?" cried Alméric. "Alas! those good turkeys who have always been so kind to me." "Ninny!" exclaimed the old beggar, "why did you get yourself turned into a vulture? Better to be a turkey and liked, than a vulture--and timid." And again the young man could not refrain from laughing at this reflection. In one corner of the court there was a bear seated on a bench, his head bowed down upon his chest and plunged in profound meditation. "There's a fellow, too, who does not seem to know much about the business of a bear," remarked the beggar. "How did he come to be in this palace? What vanity has pushed him into the bear profession? I'd lay a wager he once had a better." The beggar approached the melancholy animal. "Bear," he asked, "what were you before you got yourself transformed into your present shape?" "I was a doctor's assistant." "A doctor's assistant!" repeated Alméric and the beggar in the same breath. "Yes, a doctor's assistant," replied the bear; "but everybody made fun of my position. Men pursued me with their irony, made songs about me, burlesqued me on the stage. I wished to escape them, and had myself turned into a bear; but I am tired of my condition. I was not born for solitude."