be sober and not give dinner-parties. Think of your being a countess
and owing three hundred francs to a poor shoemaker with seven
children!' You can guess how she railed, for the Mahuchet hasn't any
education. When the countess tried to make an excuse ('no money')
Mahuchet screamed out: 'Look at all your fine silver, madame; pawn it
and pay me!'--'Take some yourself,' said the countess quickly,
gathering up a quantity of forks and spoons and putting them into her
hands. Downstairs we rattled!--heavens! like success itself. No,
before we got to the street Mahuchet began to cry--she's a kind woman!
She turned back and restored the silver; for she now understood that
countess' poverty--it was plated ware!"

"And she forked it over," said Leon, in whom the former Mistigris
occasionally reappeared.

"Ah! my dear monsieur," said Madame Nourrisson, enlightened by the
slang, "you are an artist, you write plays, you live in the rue du
Helder and are friends with Madame Anatolia; you have habits that I
know all about. Come, do you want some rarity in the grand style,
--Carabine or Mousqueton, Malaga or Jenny Cadine?"

"Malaga, Carabine! nonsense!" cried Leon de Lora. "It was we who
invented them."

"I assure you, my good Madame Nourrisson," said Bixiou, "that we only
wanted the pleasure of making your acquaintance, and we should like
very much to be informed as to how you ever came to slip into this
business."

"I was confidential maid in the family of a marshal of France, Prince