Bixiou. "He lived in England and Germany, he spent some little time at
St. Petersburg, he ran over Holland but he parted company with the
aforesaid thirty thousand francs by living as if he had thirty
thousand a year. Everywhere he found the same _supreme de volaille_, the
same aspics, and French wines; he heard French spoken wherever he went
--in short, he never got away from Paris. He ought, of course, to have
tried to deprave his disposition, to fence himself in triple brass, to
get rid of his illusions, to learn to hear anything said without a
blush, and to master the inmost secrets of the Powers.--Pooh! with a
good deal of trouble he equipped himself with four languages--that is
to say, he laid in a stock of four words for one idea. Then he came
back, and certain tedious dowagers, styled 'conquests' abroad, were
left disconsolate. Godefroid came back, shy, scarcely formed, a good
fellow with a confiding disposition, incapable of saying ill of any
one who honored him with an admittance to his house, too staunch to be
a diplomatist, altogether he was what we call a thoroughly good
fellow."

"To cut it short, a brat with eighteen thousand livres per annum to
drop over the first investment that turns up," said Couture.

"That confounded Couture has such a habit of anticipating dividends,
that he is anticipating the end of my tale. Where was I? Oh!
Beaudenord came back. When he took up his abode on the Quai Malaquais,
it came to pass that a thousand francs over and above his needs was
altogether insufficient to keep up his share of a box at the Italiens
and the Opera properly. When he lost twenty-five or thirty louis at
play at one swoop, naturally he paid; when he won, he spent the money;
so should we if we were fools enough to be drawn into a bet.
Beaudenord, feeling pinched with his eighteen thousand francs, saw the