“Yes,” said Minard, “the versification has taste; there are some really fine lines in it, and I admit to you that I think this sort of literature rather above the anagrams of Master Colleville.”

“Oh!” replied Minard, “Colleville’s anagrams are mere witticisms, which have nothing in common with the sterner accents of Melpomene.”

“And yet,” said Minard, “I can assure you he attaches the greatest importance to that rubbish, and apropos to his anagrams, as, indeed, about many other things, he is not a little puffed up.  Since their emigration to the Madeleine quarter it seems to me that not only the Sieur Colleville, but his wife and daughter, and the Thuilliers and the whole coterie have assumed an air of importance which is rather difficult to justify.”

“No wonder!” said Phellion; “one must have a pretty strong head to stand the fumes of opulence.  Our friends have become so very rich by the purchase of that property where they have gone to live that we ought to forgive them for a little intoxication; and I must say the dinner they gave us yesterday for a house-warming was really as well arranged as it was succulent.”

“I myself,” said Minard, “have given a few remarkable dinners to which men in high government positions have not disdained to come, yet I am not puffed up with pride on that account; such as my friends have always known me, that I have remained.”

“You, Monsieur le maire, have long been habituated to the splendid existence you have made for yourself by your high commercial talents; our friends, on the contrary, so lately embarked on the smiling ship of Fortune, have not yet found, as the vulgar saying is, their sea-legs.”

And then to cut short a conversation in which Phellion began to think the mayor rather “caustic,” he made as if he intended to take leave of him.  In order to reach their respective homes they did not always take the same way.

“Are you going through the Luxembourg?” asked Minard, not allowing Phellion to give him the slip.

“I shall cross it, but I have an appointment to meet Madame Phellion and the little Barniols at the end of the grand alley.”

“Then,” said Minard, “I’ll go with you and have the pleasure of making my bow to Madame Phellion; and I shall get the fresh air at the same time, for, in spite of hearing fine things, one’s head gets tired at the business we have just been about.”

Minard had felt that Phellion gave rather reluctant assent to his sharp remarks about the new establishment of the Thuilliers, and he did not attempt to renew the subject; but when he had Madame Phellion for a listener, he was very sure that his spite would find an echo.

“Well, fair lady,” he began, “what did you think of yesterday’s dinner?”

“It was very fine,” replied Madame Phellion; “as I tasted that soup ’a la bisque’ I knew that some caterer, like Chevet, had supplanted the cook.  But the whole affair was dull; it hadn’t the gaiety of our old meetings in the Latin quarter.  And then, didn’t it strike you, as it did me, that Madame and Mademoiselle Thuillier no longer seemed mistresses of their own house?  I really felt as if I were the guest of Madame—­what is her name?  I never can remember it.”