"Who's Théodule?"
"Your grand-nephew."
"Ah!" said the old gentleman.
Then he began reading, thought no more of the grand-nephew, who was only some Théodule, and soon became angry, which nearly always happened when he read. The paper he held, a Royalist one we need hardly say, announced for the morrow, without any amenity, one of the daily events of Paris at the time, that the pupils of the schools of law and medicine would assemble in the Place du Panthéon—to deliberate. The affair was one of the questions of the moment, the artillery of the National Guard, and a conflict between the war minister and the "Citizen Militia," on the subject of guns parked in the courtyard of the Louvre. The students were going to "deliberate" on this, and it did not require much more to render M. Gillenormand furious. He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would probably go, like the others, "to deliberate at mid-day in the Place du Panthéon."
While he was making these painful reflections lieutenant Théodule came in, dressed in mufti, which was clever, and was discreetly introduced by Mlle. Gillenormand. The lancer had reasoned thus: "The old Druid has not sunk all his money in annuities, and so it is worth the while to disguise one's self as a pékin now and then." Mlle. Gillenormand said aloud to her father,—
"Théodule, your grand-nephew."
And in a whisper to the Lieutenant,—"Assent to everything."
And she retired.
The Lieutenant, but little accustomed to such venerable meetings, stammered, with some timidity, "Good-morning, uncle," and made a bow which was composed of the involuntary and mechanical military salute blended with a bourgeois greeting.
"Ah, it's you, very good, sit down," said the ancestor, and after saying this he utterly forgot the lancer. Théodule sat down, and M. Gillenormand got up. He began walking up and down the room, with his hands in his pockets, talking aloud, and feeling with his old irritated fingers the two watches which he wore in his two fobs.