at his fete: a task that involved no
great labor on the lady's part, however, for, leaving her husband to
receive his guests in the first salon, she went and stretched herself
out on the couch in the little Japanese salon, wedged between two piles
of cushions, and perfectly motionless, so that you could see her in the
distance, at the end of the line of salons, like an idol, under the
great fan which her negro waved with a clocklike motion, as if by
machinery. These foreigners have the brass for you!

The Nabob's irritation had impressed me all the same, and as I saw his
valet going downstairs four steps at a time, I caught him on the wing
and whispered in his ear:

"What the deuce is the matter with your governor, Monsieur Noel?"

"It's the article in the _Messager_," he replied, and I had to abandon
the idea of finding out anything more for the moment, as a loud ring at
the bell announced the arrival of the first carriage, and it was
followed by a multitude of others.

Intent upon my business, giving close attention to the proper
pronunciation of the names given me and to making them ricochet from
salon to salon, I thought of nothing else. It is no easy matter to
announce properly people who always think that their names must be well
known, so that they simply murmur them through their closed lips as they
pass, and then are surprised to hear you murder them in your most
sonorous tone and almost bear you a grudge for the unimpressive
entrances, greeted with faint smiles, that follow a bungling
announcement. The task was made even more difficult at M. Jansoulet's by
the swarm of foreigners, Turks, Egyptians, Persians, Tunisians. I do not
mention the Corsicans, who were also very numerous on that occasion,
because, during my four years of service at the _Caisse Territoriale_, I
have become accustomed to pronouncing those high-sounding, interminable
names, always followed by the name of a place: "Paganetti of
Porto-Vecchio, Bastelica of Bonifacio, Paianatchi of Barbicaglia."

I enjoyed dwelling upon those Italian syllables, giving them their full
resonant value, and I could see by the stupefied expressions of those
worthy islanders how surprised and delighted they were to be introduced
in that fashion into the best continental society. But with the Turks,
the pachas and beys and effendis, I had much more difficulty, and I must
often have pronounced them awry, for M. Jansoulet, on two different
occasions, sent word to