Sapristi! I'll command the troops of Ali, pacha of Janina!" During this mental monologue, the coucou rolled through clouds of dust rising on either side of it from that much travelled road.
"What dust!" cried Mistigris.
"Henry IV.

is dead!" retorted his master.

"If you'd say it was scented with vanilla that would be emitting a new opinion." "You think you're witty," replied Mistigris.

"Well, it _is_ like vanilla at times." "In the Levant--" said Georges, with the air of beginning a story.
"'Ex Oriente flux,'" remarked Mistigris's master, interrupting the speaker.
"I said in the Levant, from which I have just returned," continued Georges, "the dust smells very good; but here it smells of nothing, except in some old dust-barrel like this." "Has monsieur lately returned from the Levant ?" said Mistigris, maliciously.

"He isn't much tanned by the sun." "Oh! I've just left my bed after an illness of three months, from the germ, so the doctors said, of suppressed plague." "Have you had the plague ?" cried the count, with a gesture of alarm.
"Pierrotin, stop!" "Go on, Pierrotin," said Mistigris.