n the green-room of the ballet, behind the scenes at the
theatres, and presided regularly at his famous bachelor luncheons, the
only receptions possible in his household. His existence was really a
very busy one, and de Gery relieved him of the heaviest part of it, the
complicated department of appeals and of charities.

The young man now became acquainted with all the audacious and burlesque
inventions, all the serio-comic combinations of that mendicancy of great
cities, organized like a department of state, innumerable as an army,
which subscribes to the newspapers and knows its _Bottin_ by heart. He
received the blonde lady, bold, young, and already faded, who only asks
for a hundred napoleons, with the threat that she will throw herself
into the river when she leaves if they are not given to her, and the
stout matron of prepossessing and unceremonious manner, who says, as she
enters: "Sir, you do not know me. Neither have I the honour of knowing
you. But we shall soon make each other's acquaintance. Be kind enough to
sit down and let us have a chat." The merchant at bay, on the verge of
bankruptcy--sometimes it is true--who comes to entreat you to save his
honour, with a pistol ready to shoot himself, bulging out the pocket
of his overcoat--sometimes it is only his pipe-case. And often genuine
distresses, wearisome and prolix, of people who are unable even to tell
how little competent they are to earn a livelihood. Side by side with
this open begging, there was that which wears various kinds of disguise:
charity, philanthropy, good works, the encouragement of projects of art,
the house-to-house begging for infant asylums, parish churches, rescued
women, charitable societies, local libraries. Finally, those who wear
a society mask, with tickets for concerts, benefit performances,
entrance-cards of all colours, "platform, front seats, reserved seats."
The Nabob insisted that no refusals should be given, and it was a
concession that he no longer burdened his own shoulders with such
matters. For quite a long time, in generous indifference, he had gone
on covering with gold all that hypocritical exploitation, paying
five hundred francs for a ticket for the concert of some Wurtemberg
cithara-player or Languedocian flutist, which at the Tuileries or at the
Duc de Mora's might have fetched ten francs. There were days when the
young de Gery issued from these audiences nauseated. All the honesty of
his youth revolted; he appro