“So you see what sort of luck he had, the poor Nabob, the first time that he dined with us.  Duperron, who was serving opposite him, told us all about it in the pantry.  It seems there could have been nothing more comic than to see the Jansoulet stuffing himself with mushrooms, and rolling terrified eyes, while the others sat watching him curiously without touching their plates.  He sweated under the effort, poor wretch.  And the best of it was that he took a second portion, he actually found the courage to take a second portion.  He kept drinking off glasses of wine, however, like a mason, between each mouthful.  Ah, well, do you wish to hear my opinion?  What he did there was very clever, and I am no longer surprised that this fat cow-herd should have become the favourite of sovereigns.  He knows where to flatter them in those little pretensions which no man avows.  In brief, the duke has been crazy over him since that day.”

This little story caused much laughter and scattered the clouds which had been raised by a few imprudent words.  So then, since the wine had untied people’s tongues, and they knew each other better, elbows were leaned on the table and the conversation fell on masters, on the places in which each of them had served, on the amusing things he had seen in them.  Ah! of how many such adventures did I not hear, how much of the interior life of those establishments did I not see pass before me.  Naturally I also made my own little effect with the story of my larder at the Territorial, the times when I used to keep my stew in the empty safe, which circumstance, however, did not prevent our old cashier, a great stickler for forms, from changing the key-word of the lock every two days, as though all the treasures of the Bank of France had been inside.  M. Louis appeared to find my anecdote entertaining.  But the most astonishing was what the little Bois l’Hery, with his Parisian street-boy’s accent, related to us concerning the household of his employers.

Marquis and Marquise de Bois l’Hery, second floor, Boulevard Haussmann.  Furniture rich as at the Tuileries, blue satin on all the walls, Chinese ornaments, pictures, curiosities, a veritable museum, indeed, overflowing even on to the stairway.  The service very smart:  six men-servants, chestnut livery in winter, nankeen livery in summer.  These people are seen everywhere at the small Mondays, at the races, at first-nights, at embassy balls, and their name always in the newspapers with a remark upon the handsome toilettes of Madame, and Monsieur’s remarkable chic.  Well! all that is nothing at all but pretence, plated goods, show, and when the marquis wants five francs nobody would lend them to him upon his possessions.  The furniture is hired by the fortnight from Fitily, the upholsterer of the demi-monde.  The curiosities, the pictures, belong to old Schwalbach, who sends his clients round there and makes them pay doubly dear, since people don’t bargain when they think they are dealing with a marquis,