or wretch.
And the best of it was that he took a second portion, he actually found
the courage to take a second portion. He kept drinking off glasses of
wine, however, like a mason, between each mouthful. Ah, well, do you
wish to hear my opinion? What he did there was very clever, and I am no
longer surprised that this fat cow-herd should have become the
favourite of sovereigns. He knows where to flatter them in those little
pretensions which no man avows. In brief, the duke has been crazy over
him since that day."

This little story caused much laughter and scattered the clouds which
had been raised by a few imprudent words. So then, since the wine had
untied people's tongues, and they knew each other better, elbows were
leaned on the table and the conversation fell on masters, on the places
in which each of them had served, on the amusing things he had seen in
them. Ah! of how many such adventures did I not hear, how much of the
interior life of those establishments did I not see pass before me.
Naturally I also made my own little effect with the story of my larder
at the Territorial, the times when I used to keep my stew in the empty
safe, which circumstance, however, did not prevent our old cashier, a
great stickler for forms, from changing the key-word of the lock every
two days, as though all the treasures of the Bank of France had been
inside. M. Louis appeared to find my anecdote entertaining. But the
most astonishing was what the little Bois l'Hery, with his Parisian
street-boy's accent, related to us concerning the household of his
employers.

Marquis and Marquise de Bois l'Hery, second floor, Boulevard Haussmann.
Furniture rich as at the Tuileries, blue satin on all the walls,
Chinese ornaments, pictures, curiosities, a veritable museum, indeed,
overflowing even on to the stairway. The service very smart: six
men-servants, chestnut livery in winter, nankeen livery in summer.
These people are seen everywhere at the small Mondays, at the races, at
first-nights, at embassy balls, and their name always in the newspapers
with a remark upon the handsome toilettes of Madame, and Monsieur's
remarkable chic. Well! all that is nothing at all but pretence, plated
goods, show, and when the marquis wants five francs nobody would
lend them to him upon his possessions. The furniture is hired by
the fortnight from Fitily, the upholsterer of the demi-monde. The
curiosities, the pictures, belong to old Schwalbach, who sends