"Monster! It was my fatherly heart that brought me!"
"Fatherly heart?—— Why, then you're not young Jamin, who has been cutting up didoes in the capital, and has been sent to Nancy to go through the Agricultural School?"
The Colonel answered with the voice of Jupiter tonans:
"I am Fougas!"
"Very well!"
"If Nature says nothing to you in my behalf, ungrateful son, question the spirit of your mother!"
"Upon my soul, sir," cried the Counsellor, "we can play at cross purposes a good while! Sit down there, if you please, and tell me your business—— Marie, take away the children."
Fougas did not require any urging. He detailed the romance of his life, without omitting anything, but with many delicate touches for the filial ears of M. Langevin. The Counsellor heard him patiently, with an appearance of perfect disinterestedness.
"Monsieur," said he, at last, "at first I took you for a madman; but now I remember that the newspapers have contained some scraps of your history, and I see that you are the victim of a mistake. I am not forty-six years old, but thirty-four. My mother's name was not Clementine Pichon, but Marie Herval. She was not born at Nancy, but at Vannes, and she was but seven years old in 1813. Nevertheless, I am happy to make your acquaintance."
"Ah! you're not my son!" replied Fougas, angrily. "Very well! So much the worse for you! No one seems to want a father of the name of Fougas! As for sons by the name of Langevin, one only has to stoop to pick them up. I know where to find one who is not a Counsellor of the Prefecture, it is true, and who does not put on a laced coat to go to mass, but who has an honest and simple heart, and is named Pierre, just like me! But, I beg your pardon, when one shows gentlemen the door, one ought at least to return what belongs to them."