ing to each of us two fingers of his hand while he kept the others
doubled up. My first impulse was to rise and say something rousing to
Calonne; then I paused, first, because I thought of a trick I could play
the statesman, and secondly, because Beaumarchais caught me familiarly
by the hand.

"Why do you do that, monsieur?" I said.

He winked at the comptroller.

"Don't wake him," he said in a low voice. "A man is happy when asleep."

"Pray, is sleep a financial scheme?" I whispered.

"Indeed, yes!" said Calonne, who had guessed our words from the mere
motion of our lips. "Would to God we could sleep long, and then the
awakening you are about to see would never happen."

"Monseigneur," said the dramatist, "I must thank you--"

"For what?"

"Monsieur de Mirabeau has started for Berlin. I don't know whether we
might not both have drowned ourselves in that affair of 'les Eaux.'"

"You have too much memory, and too little gratitude," replied the
minister, annoyed at having one of his secrets divulged in my presence.

"Possibly," said Beaumarchais, cut to the quick; "but I have millions
that can balance many a score."

Calonne pretended not to hear.

It was long past midnight when the play ceased. Supper was announced.
There were ten of us at table: Bodard and his wife, Calonne,
Beaumarchais, the two strange men, two pretty women, whose names I will
not give here, a _fermier-general_, Lavoisier, and myself. Out of thirty
guests who were in the salon when I entered it, only these ten remained.
The two _queer species_ did not consent to stay until they were urged
to do so by Madame Bodard, who probably thought she was paying her
obligations to the surgeon by giving him something to eat, and pleasing
her husband (with whom she appeared, I don't precisely know why, to be
coquetting) by inviting the lawyer.

The supper began by being frightfully dull. The two strangers and
the _fermier-general_ oppressed us. I made a sign to Beaumarchais to
intoxicate the son of Esculapius, who sat on his right, giving him to
understand that I would do the same by the lawyer, who was next to me.
As there seemed no other way to amuse ourselves, and it offered a
chance to draw out the two men, who were already sufficiently singular,
Monsieur de Calonne smiled at our project. The ladies present also
shared in the bacchanal conspiracy, and the wine of Sillery crowned our
glasses again and again with its silvery foam. The surgeon was e