ere; lastly,
send a black dress-coat and a black satin waistcoat. If you have
picked up another Florine somewhere, I beg her good offices for
two cravats. So far this is nothing; I count upon you and your
skill in these matters; I am not much afraid of the tailor. But
the ingenuity of poverty, assuredly the most active of all poisons
at work in the system of man (_id est_ the Parisian), an ingenuity
that would catch Satan himself napping, has failed so far to
discover a way to obtain a hat on credit!--How many a time, my
dear friend, have we deplored this! When one of us shall bring a
hat that costs one thousand francs into fashion, then, and not
till then, can we afford to wear them; until that day comes we are
bound to have cash enough in our pockets to pay for a hat. Ah!
what an ill turn the Comedie-Francaise did us with, 'Lafleur, you
will put gold in my pockets!'

"I write with a profound sense of all the difficulties involved by
the demand. Enclose with the above a pair of boots, a pair of
pumps, a hat, half a dozen pairs of gloves. 'Tis asking the
impossible; I know it. But what is a literary life but a
periodical recurrence of the impossible? Work the miracle, write a
long article, or play some small scurvy trick, and I will hold
your debt as fully discharged--this is all I say to you. It is a
debt of honor after all, my dear fellow, and due these twelve
months; you ought to blush for yourself if you have any blushes
left.

"Joking apart, my dear Lousteau, I am in serious difficulties, as
you may judge for yourself when I tell you that Mme. de Bargeton
has married Chatelet, and Chatelet is prefect of Angouleme. The
precious pair can do a good deal for my brother-in-law; he is in
hiding at this moment on account of that letter of exchange, and
the horrid business is all my doing. So it is a question of
appearing before Mme. la Prefete and regaining my influence at all
costs. It is shocking, is it not, that David Sechard's fate should
hang upon a neat pair of shoes, a pair of open-worked gray silk
stockings (mind you, remember them), and a new hat? I shall give
out that I am sick and ill, and take to my bed, like Duvicquet, to
save the trouble of replying to the pressing invitations of my
fellow-townsmen. My fellow-townsmen, dear boy, have treated me to
a fine serenade. _My fellow-townsmen_, forsooth! I begin to wonder
how many fools