



Produced by David Widger





JACK

By Alphonse Daudet

Translated by Mary Neal Sherwood

From The Fortieth Thousand, French Edition.

Estes And Lauriat, 1877




JACK




CHAPTER I.~~VAURIGARD.

"With a _k_, sir; with a _k_. The name is written and pronounced as
in English. The child's godfather was English. A major-general in the
Indian army. Lord Pembroke. You know him, perhaps? A man of distinction
and of the highest connections. But--you understand--M. l'Abbe! How
deliciously he danced! He died a frightful death at Singapore some years
since, in a tiger-chase organized in his honor by a rajah, one of his
friends. These rajahs, it seems, are absolute monarchs in their own
country,--and one especially is very celebrated. What is his name? Wait
a moment. Ah! I have it. Rana-Ramah."

"Pardon me, madame," interrupted the abbe, smiling, in spite of himself,
at the rapid flow of words, and at the swift change of ideas. "After
Jack, what name?"

With his elbow on his desk, and his hea