'the captain, the captain.' If I want the carriage--'the captain.' Is
there a bill to pay--'the captain.' If my horse is not properly
bitted, they must speak to Captain Paz. In short, it is like a game of
dominoes--Paz is everywhere. I hear of nothing but Paz, but I never
see Paz. Who and what is Paz? Why don't you bring forth your Paz?"

"Isn't everything going on right?" asked the count, taking the
"bocchettino" of his narghile from his lips.

"Everything is going on so right that other people with an income of
two hundred thousand francs would ruin themselves by going at our
pace, and we have only one hundred and ten thousand."

So saying she pulled the bell-cord (an exquisite bit of needlework). A
footman entered, dressed like a minister.

"Tell Captain Paz that I wish to see him."

"If you think you are going to find out anything that way--" said
Comte Adam, laughing.

It is well to mention that Adam and Clementine, married in December,
1835, had gone soon after the wedding to Italy, Switzerland, and
Germany, where they spent the greater part of two years. Returning to
Paris in November, 1837, the countess entered society for the first
time as a married woman during the winter which had just ended, and
she then became aware of the existence, half-suppressed and wholly
dumb but very useful, of a species of factotum who was personally
invisible, named Paz,--spelt thus, but pronounced "Patz."