lves," said he, alighting from the carriage, "and I will have
prepared for you some crabs _a l'alsacienne_."

"Oh, you will awaken a desire for luxury in the little one!"

He bowed to them, standing beside the carriage door, then entered
quickly the vestibule of the main entrance to the club, threw his
topcoat and cane to a group of footmen, who had risen like soldiers at
the passing of an officer; mounted the broad stairway, meeting another
brigade of servants in knee-breeches, pushed open a door, feeling
himself suddenly as alert as a young man, as he heard at the end of the
corridor a continuous clash of foils, the sound of stamping feet, and
loud exclamations: _"Touche!" "A moi." "Passe!" "J'en ai!" "Touche!" "A
vous!"_

In the fencing-hall the swordsmen, dressed in gray linen, with leather
vests, their trousers tight around the ankles, a sort of apron falling
over the front of the body, one arm in the air, with the hand thrown
backward, and in the other hand, enormous in a large fencing-glove, the
thin, flexible foil, extended and recovered with the agile swiftness of
mechanical jumping-jacks.

Others rested and chatted, still out of breath, red and perspiring, with
handkerchief in hand to wipe off faces and necks; others, seated on
a square divan that ran along the four sides of the hall, watched the
fencing--Liverdy against Landa, and the master of the club, Taillade,
against the tall Rocdiane.

Bertin, smiling, quite at home, shook hands with several men.

"I choose you!" cried the Baron de Baverie.

"I am with you, my dear fellow," said Bertin, passing into the
dressing-room to prepare himself.

He had not felt so agile and vigorous for a long time, and, guessing
that he should fence well that day, he hurried as impatiently as a
schoolboy ready for play. As soon as he stood before his adversary he
attacked him with great ardor, and in ten minutes he had touched him
eleven times and had so fatigued him that the Baron cried for quarter.
Then he fenced with Punisimont, and with his colleague, Amaury Maldant.

The cold douche that followed, freezing his palpitating flesh, reminded
him of the baths of his twentieth year, when he used to plunge head
first into the Seine from the bridges in the suburbs, in order to amaze
the bourgeois passers-by.

"Shall you dine here?" inquired Maldant.

"Yes."

"We have a table with Liverdy, Rocdiane, and Landa; make haste; it is a
quarter past seven."

The dining-r