sempre come_"--[an Italian proverb not to be
decently reproduced].

The abbe, who is a good fellow, and takes everything in good part,
bursts out laughing; Mademoiselle, struck by my observation and by
the aptness of my comparison, bursts out laughing; everybody to
right and left burst out laughing, except the master of the house,
who flies into a huff, and uses language that would have meant
nothing if we had been by ourselves--

"Rameau, you are an impertinent."

"I know I am, and it is on that condition that I was received
here."

"You are a scoundrel."

"Like anybody else."

"A beggar."

"Should I be here, if I were not?"

"I will have you turned out of doors."

"After dinner I will go of my own will."

"I recommend you to go."

We dined: I did not lose a single toothful. After eating well and
drinking amply, for after all Messer Gaster is a person with whom I
have never sulked, I made up my mind what to do, and I prepared to
go; I had pledged my word in presence of so many people that I was
bound to keep it. For a considerable time I hunted up and down the
room for my hat and cane in every corner where they were not likely
to be, reckoning all the time that the master of the house would
break out into a new torrent of injuries, that somebody would
interpose, and that we should at last make friends by sheer dint of
altercation. I turned on this side and that, for I had nothing on
my heart; but the master, more sombre and dark-browed than Homer's
Apollo as he lets his arrows fly among the Greeks, with his cap
plucked farther over his head than usual, marched backwards and
forwards up and down the room. Mademoiselle approaches me: "But,
mademoiselle," say I, "what has happened beyond what happens every
day? Have I been different from what I am on other days?"

"I insist on his leaving the house."--"I am leaving.... But I have
given no ground of offence."--"Pardon me; we invite the abbe
and...." It was he who was wrong to invite the abbe, while at the
same time he was receiving me, and with me so many other creatures
of my sort.--"Come, friend Rameau, you must beg the abbe's
pardon."--"I shall not know what to do with his pardon."--"Come,
come, all will be right."--They take me by the hand, and drag me