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“You have been playing tricks with it at the office; you have been playing the fool and opening it, to show it off!” she screamed.

“I only opened it once, to let them see what a nice one it was, that is all, I swear.”

But she shook with rage, and got up one of those conjugal scenes which make a peaceable man dread the domestic hearth more than a battlefield where bullets are raining.

She mended it with a piece of silk cut out of the old umbrella, which was of a different color, and the next day Oreille went off very humbly with the mended article in his hand. He put it into a cupboard, and thought no more of it than of some unpleasant recollection.

But he had scarcely got home that evening when his wife took the umbrella from him, opened it, and nearly had a fit when she saw what had befallen it, for the disaster was irreparable. It was covered with small holes, which evidently proceeded from burns, just as if some one had emptied the ashes from a lighted pipe on to it. It was done for utterly, irreparably.

She looked at it without a word, in too great a passion to be able to say anything. He, also, when he saw the damage, remained almost dumfounded, in a state of frightened consternation.

They looked at each other, then he looked at the floor; and the next moment she threw the useless article at his head, screaming out in a transport of the most violent rage, for she had recovered her voice by that time:

“Oh! you brute! you brute! You did it on purpose, but I will pay you out for it. You shall not have another.”

And then the scene began again, and after the storm had raged for an hour, he at last was able to explain himself. He declared that he could not understand it at all, and that it could only proceed from malice or from vengeance.

A ring at the bell saved him; it was a friend whom they were expecting to dinner.

Mme. Oreille submitted the case to him. As for buying a new umbrella, that was out of the question; her husband should not have another. The friend very sensibly said that in that case his clothes would be spoiled, and they were certainly worth more than the umbrella. But the little woman, who was still in a rage, replied:

“Very well, then, when it rains he may have the kitchen umbrella, for I will not give him a new silk one.”

Oreille utterly rebelled at such an idea.

“All right,” he said; “then I shall resign my post. I am not going to the office with the kitchen umbrella.”

The friend interposed.

“Have this one re-covered; it will not cost much.”

But Mme. Oreille, being in the temper that she was, said:

“It will cost at least eight francs to re-cover it. Eight and eighteen are twenty-six. Just fancy, twenty-six francs for an umbrella! It is utter madness!”

The friend, who was only a poor man of the middle classes, had an inspiration:

“Make your fire assurance pay for it. The companies pay for all articles that are burned, as long as the damage has been done in your own house.”

On hearing this advice the little woman calmed down immediately, and then, after a moment’s reflection, she said to her husband:

“To-morrow, before going to your office, you will go to the Maternelle Assurance Company, show them the state your umbrella is in, and make them pay for the damage.”

M. Oreille fairly jumped, he was so startled at the proposal.

“I would not do it for my life! It is eighteen francs lost, that is all. It will not ruin us.”

The next morning he took a walking-stick when he went out, and, luckily, it was a fine day.

Left at home alone, Mme. Oreille could not get over the loss of her eighteen francs by any means. She had put the umbrella on the dining- room table, and she looked at it without being able to come to any determination.