CHAPTER I.
A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION.
GEORGE L---- to PAUL B., PARIS.
ROZEL, _15th September_.
It's nine o'clock in the evening, my dear friend, and you have just arrived from Germany.

They hand you my letter, the post-mark of which informs you at once that I am absent from Paris.

You indulge in a gesture of annoyance, and call me a vagabond.

Nevertheless, you settle down in your best arm-chair, you open my letter, and you hear that I have been for the past five days domesticated in a flour-mill in Lower Normandy.

In a flour-mill! What the duse can he be doing in a mill?
A wrinkle appears on your forehead, your eyebrows are drawn together; you lay down my letter for a moment; you attempt to penetrate this mystery by the unaided power of your imagination.