vant, and, as his aim was to make a fortune, will ye nill ye,
he managed, even now, in his hours of pride and self-indulgence, to get
along without one. It was not many moments, therefore, before he came
out and ushered Desiree himself into his salon; a room of ten feet by
fourteen, with a carpet that covered just eight feet by six, in its
centre. Now that they were alone, in this snuggery, which seemed barely
large enough to contain so great a man's moustaches, the parties
understood each other without unnecessary phrases, and I was, at once,
produced.

{as the court was = the Royal Court of King Louis Philippe prided
itself on its simplicity and informality; garcons, bourgeois = waiters,
neighbors; salon = living room}

Colonel Silky was evidently struck with my appearance. An officer of
his readiness and practice saw at once that I might be made to diminish
no small part of the ways and means of his present campaign, and
precisely in proportion as he admired me, he began to look cold and
indifferent. This management could not deceive me, my clairvoyance
defying any such artifices; but it had a sensible effect on Desiree,
who, happening very much to want money for a particular object just at
that moment, determined, on the spot, to abate no less than fifty
francs from the price she had intended to ask. This was deducting five
francs more than poor Adrienne got for the money she had expended for
her beautiful lace, and for all her toil, sleepless nights, and tears;
a proof of the commissionaire's scale of doing business. The bargain
was now commenced in earnest, offering an instructive scene of French
protestations, assertions, contradictions and volubility on one side,
and of cold, seemingly phlegmatic, but wily Yankee calculation, on the
other. Desiree had set her price at one hundred and fifty francs, after
abating the fifty mentioned, and Colonel Silky had early made up his
mind to give only one hundred. After making suitable allowances for my
true value before I was embellished, the cost of the lace and of the
work, Desiree was not far from the mark; but the Colonel saw that she
wanted money, and he knew that two napoleons and a half, with his
management, would carry him from Paris to Havre. It is true he had
spent the difference that morning on an eye-glass that he never used,
or when he did it was only to obscure his vision; but the money was not
lost, as it aided in persuading the world he was a colonel and wa