she saw that table sparkling with
silver, the covers to the dishes and the chandeliers all glittering like
a jewel-case, didn't she go off like soda-water and fire her shot:
'When people spend the money of others they should be sober and not give
dinner-parties. Think of your being a countess and owing three hundred
francs to a poor shoemaker with seven children!' You can guess how she
railed, for the Mahuchet hasn't any education. When the countess tried
to make an excuse ('no money') Mahuchet screamed out: 'Look at all your
fine silver, madame; pawn it and pay me!'--'Take some yourself,' said
the countess quickly, gathering up a quantity of forks and spoons and
putting them into her hands. Downstairs we rattled!--heavens! like
success itself. No, before we got to the street Mahuchet began to
cry--she's a kind woman! She turned back and restored the silver; for
she now understood that countess' poverty--it was plated ware!"

"And she forked it over," said Leon, in whom the former Mistigris
occasionally reappeared.

"Ah! my dear monsieur," said Madame Nourrisson, enlightened by the
slang, "you are an artist, you write plays, you live in the rue du
Helder and are friends with Madame Anatolia; you have habits that I know
all about. Come, do you want some rarity in the grand style,--Carabine
or Mousqueton, Malaga or Jenny Cadine?"

"Malaga, Carabine! nonsense!" cried Leon de Lora. "It was we who
invented them."

"I assure you, my good Madame Nourrisson," said Bixiou, "that we only
wanted the pleasure of making your acquaintance, and we should like very
much to be informed as to how you ever came to slip into this business."

"I was confidential maid in the family of a marshal of France, Prince
d'Ysembourg," she said, assuming the airs of a Dorine. "One morning, one
of the most beplumed countesses of the Imperial court came to the house
and wanted to speak to the marshal privately. I put myself in the way of
hearing what she said. She burst into tears and confided to that booby
of a marshal--yes, the Conde of the Republic is a booby!--that her
husband, who served under him in Spain, had left her without means,
and if she didn't get a thousand francs, or two thousand, that day
her children must go without food; she hadn't any for the morrow. The
marshal, who was always ready to give in those days, took two notes of
a thousand francs each out of his desk, and gave them to her. I saw that
fine countess going down the stai