rged with? The butcher sends me
five baskets of meat every morning. I use only two of them and sell the
three others back to him. Where is the _chef_ who does not do the same?
As if, instead of coming to play the spy in my basement, he would not
do better to look after the great leakage up there. When I think that
in three months that gang on the first floor has smoked twenty-eight
thousand francs' worth of cigars. Twenty-eight thousand francs! Ask
Noel if I am not speaking the truth. And on the second floor, in the
apartments of madame, that is where you should look to see a fine
confusion of linen, of dresses thrown aside after being worn once,
jewels by the handful, pearls that you crush on the floor as you walk.
Oh, but wait a little. I shall get my own back from that same little
gentleman."

I understood that the allusion was to M. de Gery, that young secretary
of the Nabob who often comes to the Territorial, where he is always
occupied rummaging into the books. Very polite, certainly, but a very
haughty young man, who does not know how to push himself forward. From
all round the table there came nothing but a concert of maledictions
on him. M. Louis himself addressed some remarks to the company upon the
subject with his grand air:

"In our establishment, my dear M. Barreau, the cook quite recently had
an affair, similar to yours, with the chief of his excellency's Cabinet,
who had permitted himself to make some comments upon the expenditure.
The cook went up to the duke's apartments upon the instant in his
professional costume, and with his hand on the strings of his apron,
said, 'Let your excellency choose between monsieur and myself.' The duke
did not hesitate. One can find as many Cabinet leaders as one desires,
while the good cooks, you can count them. There are in Paris four
altogether. I include you, my dear Barreau. We dismissed the chief
of our Cabinet, giving him a prefecture of the first class by way of
consolation; but we kept the _chef_ of our kitchen."

"Ah, you see," said M. Barreau, who rejoiced to hear this story,
"you see what it is to serve in the house of a _grand seigneur_. But
_parvenus_ are _parvenus_--what will you have?"

"And that is all Jansoulet is," added M. Francis, tugging at his cuffs.
"A man who used to be a street porter at Marseilles."

M. Noel took offence at this.

"Hey, down there, old Francis, you are very glad all the same to have
him to pay your card-debts, the street