that amuses you. Go and ask
a Brazilian cockatoo what gratitude it owes to the man who placed it in
a gilded cage.--Don't look at me like that; you are just like a Buddist
Bonze.

"Well, you show your red-and-white cockatoo to all Paris. You say, 'Does
anybody else in Paris own such a parrot? And how well it talks, how
cleverly it picks its words!' If du Tillet comes in, it says at once,
'How'do, little swindler!'--Why, you are as happy as a Dutchman who has
grown an unique tulip, as an old nabob pensioned off in Asia by England,
when a commercial traveler sells him the first Swiss snuff-box that
opens in three places.

"You want to win my heart? Well, now, I will tell you how to do it."

"Speak, speak, dere is noting I shall not do for you. I lofe to be
fooled by you."

"Be young, be handsome, be like Lucien de Rubempre over there by your
wife, and you shall have gratis what you can never buy with all your
millions!"

"I shall go 'vay, for really you are too bat dis evening!" said the
banker, with a lengthened face.

"Very well, good-night then," said Esther. "Tell Georches to make your
pillows very high and place your fee low, for you look apoplectic this
evening.--You cannot say, my dear, that I take no interest in your
health."

The Baron was standing up, and held the door-knob in his hand.

"Here, Nucingen," said Esther, with an imperious gesture.

The Baron bent over her with dog-like devotion.

"Do you want to see me very sweet, and giving you sugar-and-water, and
petting you in my house, this very evening, old monster?"

"You shall break my heart!"

"Break your heart--you mean bore you," she went on. "Well, bring me
Lucien that I may invite him to our Belshazzar's feast, and you may
be sure he will not fail to come. If you succeed in that little
transaction, I will tell you that I love you, my fat Frederic, in such
plain terms that you cannot but believe me."

"You are an enchantress," said the Baron, kissing Esther's glove. "I
should be villing to listen to abuse for ein hour if alvays der vas a
kiss at de ent of it."

"But if I am not obeyed, I----" and she threatened the Baron with her
finger as we threaten children.

The Baron raised his head like a bird caught in a springe and imploring
the trapper's pity.

"Dear Heaven! What ails Lucien?" said she to herself when she was alone,
making no attempt to check her falling tears; "I never saw him so sad."

This is what had happened to