"His valet!" cried Oscar.

"Hang it! people don't tell such things about their friends in public
conveyances," exclaimed Mistigris. "As for me, I'm not listening to
you; I'm deaf: 'discretion plays the better part of adder.'"

"'A poet is nasty and not fit,' and so is a tale-bearer," cried
Schinner.

"Great painter," said Georges, sententiously, "learn this: you can't
say harm of people you don't know. Now the little one here has proved,
indubitably, that he knows his Serizy by heart. If he had told us
about the countess, perhaps--?"

"Stop! not a word about the Comtesse de Serizy, young men," cried the
count. "I am a friend of her brother, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, and
whoever attempts to speak disparagingly of the countess must answer to
me."

"Monsieur is right," cried the painter; "no man should blaguer women."

"God, Honor, and the Ladies! I believe in that melodrama," said
Mistigris.

"I don't know the guerrilla chieftain, Mina, but I know the Keeper of
the Seals," continued the count, looking at Georges; "and though I
don't wear my decorations," he added, looking at the painter, "I
prevent those who do not deserve them from obtaining any. And finally,
let me say that I know so many persons that I even know Monsieur
Grindot, the architect of Presles. Pierrotin, stop at the next inn; I