derick got into a rage with him for this, and when the young man's
anger had passed off:

"Well, afterwards----what?"

"If this can save him, so much the better. It won't kill me! Let us
think no more about it!"

But, while moving about his papers on the table, he came across
Hussonnet's letter, and noticed the postscript, which had not at first
attracted his attention. The Bohemian wanted just five thousand francs
to give the journal a start.

"Ah! this fellow is worrying me to death!"

And he sent a curt answer, unceremoniously refusing the application.
After that, he dressed himself to go to the Maison d'Or.

Cisy introduced his guests, beginning with the most respectable of them,
a big, white-haired gentleman.

"The Marquis Gilbert des Aulnays, my godfather. Monsieur Anselme de
Forchambeaux," he said next--(a thin, fair-haired young man, already
bald); then, pointing towards a simple-mannered man of forty: "Joseph
Boffreu, my cousin; and here is my old tutor, Monsieur Vezou"--a person
who seemed a mixture of a ploughman and a seminarist, with large
whiskers and a long frock-coat fastened at the end by a single button,
so that it fell over his chest like a shawl.

Cisy was expecting some one else--the Baron de Comaing, who "might
perhaps come, but it was not certain." He left the room every minute,
and appeared to be in a restless frame of mind. Finally, at eight
o'clock, they proceeded towards an apartment splendidly lighted up and
much more spacious than the number of guests required. Cisy had selected
it for the special purpose of display.

A vermilion epergne laden with flowers and fruit occupied the centre of
the table, which was covered with silver dishes, after the old French
fashion; glass bowls full of salt meats and spices formed a border all
around it. Jars of iced red wine stood at regular distances from each
other. Five glasses of different sizes were ranged before each plate,
with things of which the use could not be divined--a thousand dinner
utensils of an ingenious description. For the first course alone, there
was a sturgeon's jowl moistened with champagne, a Yorkshire ham with
tokay, thrushes with sauce, roast quail, a bechamel vol-au-vent, a stew
of red-legged partridges, and at the two ends of all this, fringes of
potatoes which were mingled with truffles. The apartment was illuminated
by a lustre and some girandoles, and it was hung with red damask
curtains.

Four men-servants in bl