o scullions bearing
in three baskets a dinner, and six bottles of wine selected with
discernment.

"How shall we ever eat it all up?" said Popinot.

"The man of letters!" cried Gaudissart, "don't forget him. Finot loves
the pomps and the vanities; he is coming, the innocent boy, armed with
a dishevelled prospectus--the word is pat, hein? Prospectuses are always
thirsty. We must water the seed if we want flowers. Depart, slaves!" he
added, with a gorgeous air, "there is gold for you."

He gave them ten sous with a gesture worthy of Napoleon, his idol.

"Thank you, Monsieur Gaudissart," said the scullions, better pleased
with the jest than with the money.

"As for you, my son," he said to the waiter, who stayed to serve
the dinner, "below is a porter's wife; she lives in a lair where she
sometimes cooks, as in other days Nausicaa washed, for pure amusement.
Find her, implore her goodness; interest her, young man, in the
warmth of these dishes. Tell her she shall be blessed, and above all,
respected, most respected, by Felix Gaudissart, son of Jean-Francois
Gaudissart, grandson of all the Gaudissarts, vile proletaries of ancient
birth, his forefathers. March! and mind that everything is hot, or I'll
deal retributive justice by a rap on your knuckles!"

Another knock sounded.

"Here comes the pungent Andoche!" shouted Gaudissart.

A stout, chubby-faced fellow of medium height, from head to foot the
evident son of a hat-maker, with round features whose shrewdness was
hidden under a restrained and subdued manner, suddenly appeared. His
face, which was melancholy, like that of a man weary of poverty, lighted
up hilariously when he caught sight of the table, and the bottles
swathed in significant napkins. At Gaudissart's shout, his pale-blue
eyes sparkled, his big head, hollowed like that of a Kalmuc Tartar,
bobbed from right to left, and he bowed to Popinot with a queer manner,
which meant neither servility nor respect, but was rather that of a man
who feels he is not in his right place and will make no concessions.
He was just beginning to find out that he possessed no literary talent
whatever; he meant to stay in the profession, however, by living on the
brains of others, and getting astride the shoulders of those more able
than himself, making his profit there instead of struggling any longer
at his own ill-paid work. At the present moment he had drunk to the
dregs the humiliation of applications and appeals which