THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART
Page: 13

"You will be brought up with a round turn, you and your newspapers.
I'll bet you won't get further than Poitiers before the police will
nab you."

"What will you bet?"

"A shawl."

"Done! If I lose that shawl I'll go back to the article Paris and the
hat business. But as for getting the better of Gaudissart--never!
never!"

And the illustrious traveller threw himself into position before
Jenny, looked at her proudly, one hand in his waistcoat, his head at
three-quarter profile,--an attitude truly Napoleonic.

"Oh, how funny you are! what have you been eating to-night?"

Gaudissart was thirty-eight years of age, of medium height, stout and
fat like men who roll about continually in stage-coaches, with a face
as round as a pumpkin, ruddy cheeks, and regular features of the type
which sculptors of all lands adopt as a model for statues of
Abundance, Law, Force, Commerce, and the like. His protuberant stomach
swelled forth in the shape of a pear; his legs were small, but active
and vigorous. He caught Jenny up in his arms like a baby and kissed
her.

"Hold your tongue, young woman!" he said. "What do you know about
Saint-Simonism, antagonism, Fourierism, criticism, heroic enterprise,
or woman's freedom? I'll tell you what they are,--ten francs for each
subscription, Madame Gaudissart."

"On my word of honor, you are going crazy, Gaudissart."

"More and more crazy about YOU," he replied, flinging his hat upon the
sofa.

The next morning Gaudissart, having breakfasted gloriously with Jenny,
departed on horseback to work up the chief towns of the district to
which he was assigned by the various enterprises in whose interests he
was now about to exercise his great talents. After spending forty-five
days in beating up the country between Paris and Blois, he remained
two weeks at the latter place to write up his correspondence and make
short visits to the various market towns of the department. The night
before he left Blois for Tours he indited a letter to Mademoiselle
Jenny Courand. As the conciseness and charm of this epistle cannot be
equalled by any narration of ours, and as, moreover, it proves the