Left to himself, M. Saval succeeded in putting everything around him in order.  Then he lighted the wax-candles, and waited.

He waited for a quarter of an hour, half an hour, an hour.  Romantin did not return.  Then, suddenly there was a dreadful noise on the stairs, a song shouted out in chorus by twenty mouths and a regular march like that of a Prussian regiment.  The whole house was shaken by the steady tramp of feet.  The door flew open, and a motley throng appeared—­men and women in file, two and two holding each other by the arm and stamping their heels on the ground to mark time, advanced into the studio like a snake uncoiling itself.  They howled: 

     “Come, and let us all be merry,
     Pretty maids and soldiers gay!”

M. Saval, thunderstruck, remained standing in evening dress under the chandelier.  The procession of revellers caught sight of him, and uttered a shout: 

“A Jeames!  A Jeames!”

And they began whirling round him, surrounding him with a circle of vociferations.  Then they took each other by the hand and went dancing about madly.

He attempted to explain: 

“Messieurs—­messieurs—­mesdames——­”

But they did not listen to him.  They whirled about, they jumped, they brawled.

At last, the dancing ceased.  M. Saval said: 

“Gentlemen——­”

A tall young fellow, fair-haired and bearded to the nose, interrupted him: 

“What’s your name, my friend?”

The notary, quite scared, said: 

“I am M. Saval.”

A voice exclaimed: 

“You mean Baptiste.”

A woman said: 

“Let the poor waiter alone!  You’ll end by making him get angry.  He’s paid to wait on us, and not to be laughed at by us.”

Then, M. Saval noticed that each guest had brought his own provisions.  One held a bottle of wine, and the other a pie.  This one had a loaf of bread, and one a ham.

The tall, fair young fellow placed in his hands an enormous sausage, and gave orders: 

“Here, go and arrange the sideboard in the corner over there.  Put the bottles at the left and the provisions at the right.”

Saval, getting quite distracted, exclaimed:  “But, messieurs, I am a notary!”

There was a moment’s silence and then a wild outburst of laughter.  One suspicious gentleman asked: 

“How came you to be here?”

He explained, telling about his project of going to the opera, his departure from Vernon, his arrival in Paris, and the way in which he had spent the evening.

They sat around him to listen to him; they greeted him with words of applause, and called him Scheherazade.

Romantin did not return.  Other guests arrived.  M. Saval was presented to them so that he might begin his story over again.  He declined; they forced him to relate it.  They seated and tied him on one of three chairs between two women who kept constantly filling his glass.  He drank; he laughed; he talked; he sang, too.  He tried to waltz with his chair, and fell on the ground.