“Well, then,” added Pelisson, “you bring your mite in the shape of the price of the piece of land you have sold?”

“Sold?

no!”

“Have you not sold the field, then?” inquired Gourville, in astonishment, for he knew the poet’s disinterestedness.

“My wife would not let me,” replied the latter, at which there were fresh bursts of laughter.

“And yet you went to Chateau-Thierry for that purpose,” said some one.

“Certainly I did, and on horseback.”

“Poor fellow!”

“I had eight different horses, and I was almost bumped to death.”