number each time done up in a packet to the Place
Vendome.

M. Jansoulet received it in the morning with his chocolate; and at the
same hour his friends and his enemies--for a man like the Nabob could
be regarded with indifference by none--would be reading, commenting,
tracing for themselves the relation to him a line of conduct designed to
save them from becoming compromised. Today's article must be supposed to
have struck hard all the same; for Jansoulet, the coachman, recounted
to us a few hours ago, in the Bois, his master had not exchanged ten
greetings in the course of ten drives round the lake, while ordinarily
his hat is as rarely on his head as a sovereign's when he takes the air.
Then, when they got back, there was another trouble. The three boys had
just arrived at the house, all in tears and dismay, brought home from
the College Bourdaloue by a worthy father in the interest of the poor
little fellows themselves, who had received a temporary leave of absence
in order to spare them from hearing in the parlour or the playground
any unkind story or painful allusion. Thereupon the Nabob flew into a
terrible passion, which caused him to destroy a service of porcelain,
and it appears that, had it not been for M. de Gery, he would have
rushed off at once to punch Moessard's head.

"And he would have done very well," remarked M. Noel, entering at these
last words, very much excited. "There is not a line of truth in that
rascal's article. My master had never been in Paris before last year.
From Tunis to Marseilles, from Marseilles to Tunis, those were his only
journeys. But this knave of a journalist is taking his revenge because
we refused him twenty thousand francs."

"There you acted very unwisely," observed M. Francis upon
this--Monpavon's Francis, Monpavon the old beau whose solitary tooth
shakes about in the centre of his mouth at every word he says, but whom
the young ladies regard with a favourable eye all the same on account of
his fine manners. "Yes, you were unwise. One must know how to conciliate
people, so long as they are in a position to be useful to us or to
injure us. Your Nabob has turned his back too quickly upon his friends
after his success; and between you and me, _mon cher_, he is not
sufficiently firmly established to be able to disregard attacks of this
kind."

I thought myself able here to put in a word in my turn:

"That is true enough, M. Noel, your governor is no longer the same since