small and great, all the bad puns made
on a subject already exhausted by Rabelais three hundred and fifty years
ago. It was not a little to their credit that the pyrotechnic display
was cut short with a final squib from Malaga.

"It all goes to the shoemakers," she said. "I left a milliner because
she failed twice with my hats. The vixen has been here twenty-seven
times to ask for twenty francs. She did not know that we never have
twenty francs. One has a thousand francs, or one sends to one's notary
for five hundred; but twenty francs I have never had in my life. My
cook and my maid may, perhaps, have so much between them; but for my
own part, I have nothing but credit, and I should lose that if I took to
borrowing small sums. If I were to ask for twenty francs, I should have
nothing to distinguish me from my colleagues that walk the boulevard."

"Is the milliner paid?" asked La Palferine.

"Oh, come now, are you turning stupid?" said she, with a wink. "She came
this morning for the twenty-seventh time, that is how I came to mention
it."

"What did you do?" asked Desroches.

"I took pity upon her, and--ordered a little hat that I have just
invented, a quite new shape. If Mlle. Amanda succeeds with it, she will
say no more about the money, her fortune is made."

"In my opinion," put in Desroches, "the finest things that I have seen
in a duel of this kind give those who know Paris a far better picture of
the city than all the fancy portraits that they paint. Some of you think
that you know a thing or two," he continued, glancing round at Nathan,
Bixiou, La Palferine, and Lousteau, "but the king of the ground is a
certain Count, now busy ranging himself. In his time, he was supposed
to be the cleverest, adroitest, canniest, boldest, stoutest, most subtle
and experienced of all the pirates, who, equipped with fine manners,
yellow kid gloves, and cabs, have ever sailed or ever will sail upon
the stormy seas of Paris. He fears neither God nor man. He applies in
private life the principles that guide the English Cabinet. Up to the
time of his marriage, his life was one continual war, like--Lousteau's,
for instance. I was, and am still his solicitor."

"And the first letter of his name is Maxime de Trailles," said La
Palferine.

"For that matter, he has paid every one, and injured no one," continued
Desroches. "But as your friend Bixiou was saying just now, it is a
violation of the liberty of the subject to be made t