Hippolytes Ceres, although wounded to the heart, did not allow himself to be beaten. He swore that he would be avenged.
Madame Paul Visire, whose deplorable health forced her to live with her relatives in a distant province, received an anonymous letter specifying that M. Paul Visire, who had not a half-penny when he married her, was spending her dowry on a married woman, E— C-, that he gave this woman thirty-thousand-franc motor-cars, and pearl necklaces costing twenty-five thousand francs, and that he was going straight to dishonour and ruin. Madame Paul Visire read the letter, fell into hysterics, and handed it to her father.
“I am going to box your husband’s ears,” said M. Blampignon; “he is a blackguard who will land you in the workhouse unless we look out. He may be Prime Minister,
