And his desire for rest suddenly increased, with a vague yearning, born in him for the first time, to take his grandchildren on his knees. About one o'clock in the afternoon, he arrived in a landau which he had hired at Marseilles, in front of one of those houses of Southern France so white, at the end of their avenues of plane-trees that they dazzle us and make our eyes droop. He smiled as he pursued his way along the walk before the house, and reflected: "Deuce take it! this is a nice place." Suddenly, a young rogue of five or six made his appearance, starting out of a shrubbery, and remained standing at the side of the path, staring at the gentleman with eyes wide open. Mordiane came over to him: "Good morrow, my boy." The brat made no reply. The baron, then, stooping down, took him up in his arms to kiss him, but, the next moment, suffocated by the smell of garlic with which the child seemed impregnated all over, he put him back again on the ground, muttering: "Oh! it is the gardener's son." And he proceeded towards the house. The linen was hanging out to dry on a cord before the door--shirts and chemises, napkins, dish-cloths, aprons, and sheets, while a row of socks, hanging from strings one above the other, filled up an entire window, like sausages exposed for sale in front of a pork-butcher's shop. The baron announced his arrival. A servant-girl appeared, a true servant of the South, dirty and untidy, with her hair hanging in wisps and falling over her face, while her petticoat under the accumulation of stains which had soiled it had retained only a certain uncouth remnant of its old color, a hue suitable for a country fair or a mountebank's tights. He asked: "Is M. Duchoux at home?" He had many years ago, in the mocking spirit of a skeptical man of pleasure, given this name to the foundling, in order that it might not be forgotten that he had been picked up under a cabbage. The servant-girl asked: "Do you want M. Duchoux?" "Yes." "Well, he is in the big room drawing up his plans." "Tell him that M. Merlin wishes to speak to him." She replied, in amazement: "Hey! go inside then, if you want to see him." And she bawled out: "Monsieur Duchoux--a call." The baron entered, and in a spacious apartment, rendered dark by the windows being half-closed, he indistinctly traced out persons and things, which appeared to him very slovenly looking. Standing in front of a table laden with articles of every sort, a little bald man was tracing lines on a large sheet of paper. He interrupted his work, and advanced two steps. His waistcoat left open, his unbuttoned breeches, and his turned-up shirt-sleeves, indicated that he felt hot, and his muddy shoes showed that it had rained hard some days before. He asked with a very pronounced southern accent: "Whom have I the honor of--?" "Monsieur Merlin--I came to consult you about a purchase of building-ground." "Ha! ha! very well!"