the turned-up nose, straight
as an arrow and with such a satisfied air, Gorju, who wanted to be an
actor? He is one now, or nearly so, since he studies with Regnier at the
Conservatoire. A make-believe actor, he puts on airs, and in the three
minutes that he has been in the room he has looked at his retrousse nose
and his coarse face, made to be seen from a distance, ten times in the
mirror. His first care is to inform Amedee that he has renounced his
name Gorju, which was an impossible one for the theatre, and has taken
that of Jocquelet. Then, without losing a moment, he refers to his
"talents," "charms," and "physique."

Who is this handsome fellow with such neat side-whiskers, whose finely
cut features suggest an intaglio head, and who has just placed a
lawyer's heavy portfolio upon the sofa? It is Arthur Papillon, the
distinguished Latin scholar who wished to organize a debating society at
the Lycee, and to divide the rhetoric class into groups and sub-groups
like a parliament. "What have you been doing, Papillon?" Papillon had
studied law, and was secretary of the Patru Conference, of course.

Amedee immediately recognized the third guest.

"What! Gustave!" exclaimed he, joyously.

Yes! Gustave, the former "dunce," the one they had called "Good-luck"
because his father had made an immense fortune in guano. Not one bit
changed was Gustave! The same deep-set eyes and greenish complexion. But
what style! English from the tips of his pointed shoes to the horseshoe
scarfpin in his necktie. One would say that he was a horse-jockey
dressed in his Sunday best. What was this comical Gustave doing now?
Nothing. His father has made two hundred thousand pounds' income
dabbling in certain things, and Gustave is getting acquainted with that
is all--which means to wake up every morning toward noon, with a bitter
mouth caused from the last night's supper, and to be surprised every
morning at dawn at the baccarat table, after spending five hours saying
"Bac!" in a stifled, hollow voice. Gustave understands life, and, taking
into consideration his countenance like a death's-head, it may lead him
to make the acquaintance of something entirely different. But who thinks
of death at his age? Gustave wishes to know life, and when a fit of
coughing interrupts him in one of his idiotic bursts of laughter, his
comrades at the Gateux Club tell him that he has swallowed the wrong
way. Wretched Gustave, so be it!

Meanwhile the boy with