psed M. Fortunat's wonderful sofa completely. "So he no longer
amuses himself with petty rascalities," thought Chupin, as he surveyed
the rooms. "Monsieur's working on a grand scale now. Decidedly this
mustn't be allowed to continue."

Thereupon he busied himself placing the flowers in the numerous
jardinieres scattered about the rooms, as well as in a tiny
conservatory, cleverly contrived on the balcony, and adjoining a little
apartment with silk hangings, that was used as a smoking-room. Under the
surveillance of the concierge and the valet he was allowed to visit the
whole apartments. He admired the drawing-room, filled to overflowing
with costly trifles; the dining-room, furnished in old oak; the
luxurious bed-room with its bed mounted upon a platform, as if it were a
throne, and the library filled with richly bound volumes. Everything was
beautiful, sumptuous and magnificent, and Chupin admired, though he did
not envy, this luxury. He said to himself that, if ever he became rich,
his establishment should be quite different. He would have preferred
rather more simplicity, a trifle less satin, velvet, hangings, mirrors
and gilding. Still this did not prevent him from going into ecstasies
over each room he entered; and he expressed his admiration so artlessly
that the valet, feeling as much flattered as if he were the owner of the
place, took a sort of pride in exhibiting everything.

He showed Chupin the target which the viscount practised at with
pistols for an hour every morning; for Monsieur le Vicomte was a capital
marksman, and could lodge eight balls out of ten in the neck of a bottle
at a distance of twenty paces. He also displayed his master's swords;
for Monsieur le Vicomte handled side arms as adroitly as pistols. He
took a lesson every day from one of the best fencing-masters in Paris;
and his duels had always terminated fortunately. He also showed the
viscount's blue velvet dressing-gown, his fur-trimmed slippers, and even
his elaborately embroidered night-shirts. But it was the dressing-room
that most astonished and stupefied Chupin. He stood gazing in
open-mouthed wonder at the immense white marble table, with its water
spigots and its basins, its sponges and boxes, its pots and vials and
cups; and he counted the brushes by the dozen--brushes hard and soft,
brushes for the hair, for the beard, for the hands, and the application
of cosmetic to the mustaches and eyebrows. Never had he seen in one
collect