along the cage fronts was cleared. The youngsters burst out squalling for fear, and the women looked around for the nearest way out. The chemist Bezuquet made off altogether, alleging that he was going home for his gun.

Gradually, however, Tartarin's bearing restored courage. With head erect, the intrepid Tarasconian slowly and calmly made the circuit of the booth, passing the seal's tank without stopping, glancing disdainfully on the long box filled with sawdust in which the boa would digest his raw fowl, and going to take his stand before the lion's cage.

A terrible and solemn confrontation, this! The lion of Tarascon and the lion of Africa face to face!

On the one side, Tartarin erect, with his hamstrings in tension, and his arms folded on his gun-barrel; on the other, the lion, a gigantic specimen, humped up in the straw, with blinking orbs and brutish mien, resting his huge muzzle and tawny full-bottomed wig on his forepaws. Both calm in their gaze.

Singular thing! whether the needle-gun had given him "the needle," if the popular idiom is admissible, or that he scented an enemy of his race, the lion, who had hitherto regarded the Tarasconians with sovereign scorn and yawned in their faces, was all at once affected by ire. At first he sniffed; then he growled hollowly, stretching out his claws; rising, he tossed his head, shook his mane, opened a capacious maw, and belched a deafening roar at Tartarin.

A yell of fright responded, as Tarascon precipitated itself madly towards the exit, women and children, lightermen, cap-poppers, even the brave commandant Bravida himself. But alone Tartarin of Tarascon had not budged. There he stood, firm and resolute, before the cage, lightnings in his eyes, and on his lip that gruesome grin with which all the town was familiar. In a moment's time, when all the cappoppers some little fortified by his bearing and the strength of the bars, re-approached their leader, they heard him mutter, as he stared Leo out of countenance,-"Now, this is something like a hunt!"

All the rest of that day, never a word further could they draw from Tartarin of Tarascon.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT.

THE unchallenged master of the short story in French is Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893). He was a scion of an old Norman noble family and a nephew of Flaubert, and cultivated that literary artificer's conciseness to the supreme point. His "Boule de Soif" was easily the best story in the collection called "Les Souées de Medan,' and written by five of Zola's naturalistic disciples (De Maupassant,

Huysmans, Céard, Hennique, and Alexis) in 1880. His exquisite and elaborate style, free from every artifice or mannerism, produced the most impressive effects with phrases simple and lucid as Rousseau's or Voltaire's. He wrote at least one hundred tales, ranging from the Normandy theme of selfish thrift through exhibitions of pessimism and crime, Parisian foibles and guilty love, even to nihilism and insanity. From being "a playful satyr," full of blood and fire, he himself faded into a flagging, drug-stimulated writer of morbid dramas of situation, and during the last two years of his life was an inmate of an insane asylum. He said of himself that he "never found any joy in working." His fancies became weird and half insane even as early as 1887 in "La Horla," in which the Being Invisible figures who is to succeed man, and who will die only at a predestined day, hour, minute, because the end of his existence is come. Starting as a Latin of good, clear and solid head, De Maupassant drifted through suicidal and morbid phantasms to shipwreck. His cynical humor was notable, however, even in his earlier sketches of Norman cottage and market place, of farm-yard and wine-shop. He enjoyed to depict the unmitigable miseries of humanity. His masterpiece of Norman peasant life is "La Ficelle" ("The Piece of String "). Other powerful, concise and direct tales of his are "The Necklace," the mean romance of a

needless sacrifice; "A Coward," in which a duel is averted by self-murder, and "The Wreck."

THE PIECE OF STRING.

ALL the roads leading to Goderville were crowded with peasants and their wives coming into the town; for it was market day. . ..

Maitre Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just reached Goderville, and was taking his way towards the market-place when he noticed a little piece of string lying on the ground. Maitre Hauchecorne, with the economy of a true Norman, thought it right to pick up anything that might be of use, and he bent down with difficulty, because he suffered from rheumatism. He took the little piece of fine cord off the ground, and was carefully rolling it up when he noticed that Maître Malandain, the harness-maker, was standing at his door watching him. They had formerly done business together about a halter, and had ever since hated each other cordially. Maitre Hauchecorne felt a sort of shame to be caught by his enemy searching in the mud for a bit of string. He put it quickly in his blouse, then in his breeches' pocket, and then pretended to be searching on the ground for something he couldn't find, and went off to the market, his head thrown forward, his body bent in two with pain.

All the aristocracy of the plough dined at Jourdain's, innkeeper and horse-dealer, a shrewd fellow who had money. The dishes went round and were emptied, as well as the pewter jugs of yellow cider. Everybody talked about their business, their purchases, and their sales. They interchanged ideas about the crops. Weather was good for grass, but a little unfavorable for grain.

Suddenly a drum was heard in the courtyard in front of the house. Everybody, save a few who were indifferent, rose to their feet at once, rushed to the door, to the windows, mouths full and table-napkins in hand. When he had finished beating his drum, the public crier, in a jerky voice, marking his sentences at the wrong time, said

"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in

general to all-persons present at the market, that there was lost this morning on the Beuzeville road, between-nine and ten o'clock, a black leather pocket-book containing 500 francs and business papers. You are requested to take it-to the Mayor's office at once, or to the house of Maître Fortuné Houlbrèque of Manneville. A reward of twenty francs is

offered."

Then the man departed. In the distance the fainter voice of the crier and the muffled sound of the drum could once again be heard. Then they began to talk of the event, weighing Maître Houlbrèque's chances of recovering or not recovering his pocket-book.

They were finishing their coffee when a policeman appeared on the threshold. He asked: "Is Maître Hauchecorne de Bréauté here?" Maître Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, replied, "Here I am."

And the policeman continued: "Maître Hauchecorne, will you be good enough to go with me to the Mayor's office? The Mayor wishes to speak to you."

The peasant, surprised, uneasy, swallowed his glass of brandy at one draught, got up, and more bent than in the morning, for walking again after each rest was particularly difficult, he set out, repeating: "Here I am, here I am." And he followed the policeman.

The Mayor was waiting for him, seated in an arm-chair. He was the lawyer of the place, a big, grave-looking man of pompous speech. "Maître Hauchecorne," he said, "this morning you were seen to pick up on the Beuzeville road Maître Houlbrèque of Manneville's lost pocket-book."

The countryman, astounded, gazed at the Mayor, already terrified, without knowing why, by the suspicion that attached to him. "I-I-I picked up the pocket-book?”

"Yes, you."

"On my word of honor, I know nothing about it."

"You were seen."

"I was seen? Who saw me?"

"Monsieur Malandain, the harness-maker."

Then the old man remembered, understood, and grew red with anger: "Ah! he saw me, that fellow. He saw me pick

up this piece of string; look, your worship." And fumbling in the depths of his pocket, he pulled out the bit of twine. But the Mayor, incredulous, shook his head. "You can never make me believe, Maître Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain, who is a man of strict truth, took that cord for a pocket-book."

Then the peasant, furious, lifted up his hand, spit aside to attest his honor, repeating: "It is all the same God's truth, the holy truth, your worship. On my soul and my salvation, I repeat it."

The Mayor continued: "After picking up the thing, you searched for a long time in the mud, as if a piece of money had fallen out."

The peasant was bursting with indignation and fear. "Is it possible that any one can lie like that to misrepresent a poor man? Is it possible?"

It was useless to protest, no one believed him. He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and upheld his assertion. They called each other bad names for about an hour. At his own request Maître Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him. At length, the Mayor, greatly perplexed, dismissed him, warning him that he should inform the court and ask for orders.

The news spread. On coming out of the mayoralty, the old man was surrounded, questioned with a serious or scoffing curiosity, but without any indignation. And he began to relate the story of the piece of string. No one believed him. Every one laughed. He went on, stopped by everybody, stopping his acquaintances, beginning his tale and his protestations over and over again, his pockets turned inside out to show that he had nothing. People said to him: "Oh, you cunning old fellow, you!" And he got angry, exasperated, fevered, wretched at not being believed, not knowing what to do, ever relating his story.

Night came. He had to depart. He went, accompanied by three neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the bit of cord. And he talked of his adventure the whole way. In the evening he went all over the village of Bréauté in order to tell every one. All were incredulous. He was ill in consequence all night.