Au petit bonheur : anyway, at hazard

3. Capable ..." guenille " : capable of interesting himself in every thing concerning our body. Guenille, hère, is an allusion to a line in Molière's Les Femmes Savantes. Chrysale, answering to his wife Philaminte, and to his sister Belise, who profess to scorn their bodies and to look upon them as poor, shabby, transient shelters of the soûl, says : K Guenille si Ton veut, ma guenille m'est chère." Guenille, a rag.

4. Des . . . bureaux : the endless and useless documents accumulated in the government offices^ greater in numberthan those to be met with in Chine se administration; or better, the docketing, dotting, and jotting of papers in courts and offices, worse indeed than any Chinese puzzle.

5. Les bourdes : the fibs. "Bourde, conte forgé pour abuser de la crédulité de quelqu'un : faire avaler des bourdes."

6. L'élevage des nourrissons : the bringing up and care of suckling babies. It is the custom in France, with city people of moderate means, to send their new-born infants to the country to be brought up by wet-nurses, who are paid by the month.- This practice is called mettre son enfant en nourrice. Many of thèse poor babies die for want of proper care. Inspectors are now sent from the neighboring cities to the homes of thèse nurses to see whether their charges are treated with due care.

Page 125. — 1. Galiani. The Abbé Galiani, a famous Italian littérateur, economist, and philosopher. ( 1 7 28- 1 787 .)

s. Il ... " tombés " : it is impossible for an honest man to bear him

a ny grudge ; he himself never bears a grudge to any une, even to the writers he has cried down.

3. Cuistre : a prig. Cuistre, properly gardien, by extension, Pédant d'école: allez, cuistre ! (Molière : Les Femmes Savantes).