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 which you advised me to give all my fortune to the fund for soldiers' orphans?"

"No," tartly answered Cartouche. "I never wrote you any such letter."

"Listen," said Fifi, sweetly, and taking from her pocket Cartouche's letter, she read aloud:

"'You might follow the Empress' example, and going in your coach and six, with outriders, to the banking-house of Lafitte, make a little gift of a hundred thousand francs to the fund for the soldiers' orphans.'

"I did not have a coach and six, with outriders, nor even a hundred thousand francs to give," continued Fifi, putting the letter, for future reference, in her pocket, "as I had spent almost ten thousand on clothes and monkeys and beds. And I also saved enough to buy some gowns that will put Julie Campionet's nose out of joint—but I had nearly ninety thousand francs to give—and I dressed myself up as an old woman—"

"It was all over Paris this morning," cried Cartouche, striking his forehead, "I read it myself in the newspaper! Oh, Fifi, Fifi, what madness!" and Cartouche walked wildly about the room.

"Madness, do you call it?" replied Fifi, with