in caustic humor, and never in melancholy, suddenly exclaimed:

"I know a story, or rather a tragedy, which is somewhat peculiar. It is
not at all like those which one hears of usually, and I have never told
it, thinking that it would interest no one.

"It is not at all sympathetic. I mean by that, that it does not arouse
the kind of interest which pleases or which moves one agreeably.

"Here is the story:

"I was then about thirty-five years of age, and a most enthusiastic
sportsman.

"In those days I owned a lonely bit of property in the neighborhood of
Jumieges, surrounded by forests and abounding in hares and rabbits. I was
accustomed to spending four or five days alone there each year, there not
being room enough to allow of my bringing a friend with me.

"I had placed there as gamekeeper, an old retired gendarme, a good man,
hot-tempered, a severe disciplinarian, a terror to poachers and fearing
nothing. He lived all alone, far from the village, in a little house, or
rather hut, consisting of two rooms downstairs, with kitchen and
store-room, and two upstairs. One of them, a kind of box just large
enough to accommodate a bed, a cupboard and a chair, was reserved for my
use.

"Old man Cavalier lived in the other one. When I said that he was alone
in this place, I was wrong. He had taken his nephew with him, a young
scamp about fourteen years old, who used to go to the village and run