to wear white doeskin gloves that cost six francs in the morning, and
primrose kid gloves every evening? A fig for that old humbug of a
Goriot!"

When he reached the street door, the driver of a hackney coach, who
had probably just deposited a wedding party at their door, and asked
nothing better than a chance of making a little money for himself
without his employer's knowledge, saw that Eugene had no umbrella,
remarked his black coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, and varnished
boots, and stopped and looked at him inquiringly. Eugene, in the blind
desperation that drives a young man to plunge deeper and deeper into
an abyss, as if he might hope to find a fortunate issue in its lowest
depths, nodded in reply to the driver's signal, and stepped into the
cab; a few stray petals of orange blossom and scraps of wire bore
witness to its recent occupation by a wedding party.

"Where am I to drive, sir?" demanded the man, who, by this time, had
taken off his white gloves.

"Confound it!" Eugene said to himself, "I am in for it now, and at
least I will not spend cab-hire for nothing!--Drive to the Hotel
Beauseant," he said aloud.

"Which?" asked the man, a portentous word that reduced Eugene to
confusion. This young man of fashion, species incerta, did not know
that there were two Hotels Beauseant; he was not aware how rich he was
in relations who did not care about him.

"The Vicomte de Beauseant, Rue----"