"What is the matter with you to-day?"

"I am indignant," he replied, "at the injustice I see going on around us.
Oh, the Communards were certainly right!"

After dinner he would go out again and look at the shops where the
decorations were sold, and he examined all the emblems of various shapes
and colors. He would have liked to possess them all, and to have walked
gravely at the head of a procession, with his crush hat under his arm and
his breast covered with decorations, radiant as a star, amid a buzz of
admiring whispers and a hum of respect.

But, alas! he had no right to wear any decoration whatever.

He used to say to himself: "It is really too difficult for any man to
obtain the Legion of Honor unless he is some public functionary. Suppose
I try to be appointed an officer of the Academy!"

But he did not know how to set about it, and spoke on the subject to his
wife, who was stupefied.

"Officer of the Academy! What have you done to deserve it?"

He got angry. "I know what I am talking about. I only want to know how to
set about it. You are quite stupid at times."

She smiled. "You are quite right. I don't understand anything about it."

An idea struck him: "Suppose you were to speak to M. Rosselin, the