st five o'clock, the moment when Leon de Lora was making
his evening toilet to the great wonderment of Gazonal, who counted the
thousand and one superfluities of his cousin, and admired the solemnity
of the valet as he performed his functions, the "pedicure of monsieur"
was announced, and Publicola Masson, a little man fifty years of age,
made his appearance, laid a small box of instruments on the floor, and
sat down on a small chair opposite to Leon, after bowing to Gazonal and
Bixiou.

"How are matters going with you?" asked Leon, delivering to Publicola
one of his feet, already washed and prepared by the valet.

"I am forced to take two pupils,--two young fellows who, despairing of
fortune, have quitted surgery for corporistics; they were actually dying
of hunger; and yet they are full of talent."

"I'm not asking you about pedestrial affairs, I want to know how you are
getting on politically."

Masson gave a glance at Gazonal, more eloquent than any species of
question.

"Oh! you can speak out, that's my cousin; in a way he belongs to you; he
thinks himself legitimist."

"Well! we are coming along, we are advancing! In five years from now
Europe will be with us. Switzerland and Italy are fermenting finely; and
when the occasion comes we are all ready. Here, in Paris, we have fifty
thousand armed men, without counting two hundred thousand citizens who
haven't a penny to live upon."

"Pooh," said Leon, "how about the fortifications?"

"Pie-crust; we can swallow them," replied Masson.

"In the first place, we sha'n't let the cannon in, and, in the second,
we've got a little machine more powerful than all the forts in the
world,--a machine, due to a doctor, which cured more people during the
short time we worked it than the doctors ever killed."

"How you talk!" exclaimed Gazonal, whose flesh began to creep at
Publicola's air and manner.

"Ha! that's the thing we rely on! We follow Saint-Just and Robespierre;
but we'll do better than they; they were timid, and you see what came
of it; an emperor! the elder branch! the younger branch! The Montagnards
didn't lop the social tree enough."

"Ah ca! you, who will be, they tell me, consul, or something of that
kind, tribune perhaps, be good enough to remember," said Bixiou, "that I
have asked your protection for the last dozen years."

"No harm shall happen to you; we shall need wags, and you can take the
place of Barere," replied the corn-doctor.

"And I?" s