"If I had not taken it," said the count, "Pere Leger,--who is by no
means such a ninny as you thought him from his questions about
agriculture, by which he showed that he attended to his own business,
--Pere Leger might have seized that paper and guessed my purpose. You
must give me the pleasure of dining with me, but one on condition,
--that of describing, as you promised, the execution of the Muslim of
Smyrna, and you must also finish the memoirs of some client which you
have certainly read to be so well informed."

"Schlague for blague!" said Leon de Lora, in a whisper, to Joseph
Bridau.

"Gentlemen," said the count to the two notaries and Messieurs
Margueron and de Reybert, "let us go into the next room and conclude
this business before dinner, because, as my friend Mistigris would
say: 'Qui esurit constentit.'"

"Well, he is very good-natured," said Leon de Lora to Georges Marest,
when the count had left the room.

"Yes, HE may be, but my master isn't," said Georges, "and he will
request me to go and blaguer somewhere else."

"Never mind, you like travel," said Bridau.

"What a dressing that boy will get from Monsieur and Madame Moreau!"
cried Mistigris.

"Little idiot!" said Georges. "If it hadn't been for him the count