ch hold of you at the back of your head just as if somebody
were breathing down your back. Yes, yes, it's something much more
immaterial than a kiss, just a whiff of breath. 'Pon my honour, a fellow
feels as if he were going to die.'

His eyes were moistening and he turned pale, as if experiencing some
over-acute enjoyment.

'Eat your soup,' said Mahoudeau; 'you'll tell us all about it
afterwards.'

The skate was served, and they had the vinegar bottle put on the table
to improve the flavour of the black butter, which seemed rather insipid.
They ate with a will, and the hunks of bread swiftly disappeared. There
was nothing refined about the repast, and the wine was mere common
stuff, which they watered considerably from a feeling of delicacy, in
order to lessen their host's expenses. They had just saluted the leg of
mutton with a hurrah, and the host had begun to carve it, when the door
opened anew. But this time there were furious protests.

'No, no, not another soul! Turn him out, turn him out.'

Dubuche, out of breath with having run, bewildered at finding himself
amidst such howling, thrust his fat, pallid face forward, whilst
stammering explanations.

'Really, now, I assure you it was the fault of the omnibuses. I had to
wait for five of them in the Champs Elysees.'

'No, no, he's lying!--Let him go, he sha'n't have any of that mutton.
Turn him out, turn him out!'

All the same, he ended by coming in, and it was then noticed that he
was stylishly attired, all in black, trousers and frock-coat alike, and
cravated and booted in the stiff ceremonious fashion of some respectable
member of the middle classes going out to dinner.

'Hallo! he has missed his invitation,' chaffed Fagerolles. 'Don't you
see that his fine ladies didn't ask him to stay to dinner, and so now
he's come to gobble up our leg of mutton, as he doesn't know where else
to go?'

At this Dubuche turned red, and stammered: 'Oh! what an idea! How
ill-natured you are! And, besides, just attend to your own business.'

Sandoz and Claude, seated next to each other, smiled, and the former,
beckoning to Dubuche, said to him: 'Lay your own place, bring a plate
and a glass, and sit between us--like that, they'll leave you alone.'

However, the chaff continued all the time that the mutton was being
eaten. When the charwoman had brought Dubuche a plate of soup and a
piece of skate, he himself fell in with the jokes good-naturedly. He
pretended to be