ARREST!...
To Tristan Rémy.

Last night, I met my friend Jack Ferdur, who was walking away with heavy steps, his brow furrowed and looking very bored.

Now, Jacques Ferdur is a "guy who knew how to make his money" in "split peas." Always laughing and good-natured, I thought, until now, he was the son of wit and gaiety.

What's the matter with you, old brother Jack? I said to him, adopting a tearful tone.
"Nothing!"
"Yes! You're not the same anymore; you seem to have a private sorrow. You know that pain vented is half borne. Confide it in me."
"Well, my dear, she's arrested!
Yes!... arrested! In the thirty years I've had her as a companion, this is the first time this has happened to her!" "She wasn't pretty, pretty... of course, but she had followed me in my hours of misery. I had kept her with me when fortune smiled on me, and so as not to lose her, I had "put her on the chain."
"On the chain!" I cried.
"Yes! In times of painful "misery," I separated from her and that brought me some money.
"What, you! You did that?"
"Alas. Has it never happened to you to eat rabid cow? And lady, to live, you have to make some dent in your self-esteem."
"She's been arrested, and since then, I don't know how I live."
"But what could she have done to be arrested?"
"I don't know. But looking at her, I noticed she was motionless."
"So, your wife is dead!... She's been arrested! I don't understand anymore?" "What! What!... You idiot. Who told you about my wife?..." "It's my watch that's stopped..."

Gaston-Maxime GOUTÉ.