n a coat or whatever
the doctrines of a club composed--of jockeys."

"Ha, ha!" cried Lemercier, freeing himself from the arm of his friend,
and laughing the more irresistibly as he encountered the grave look of
the Marquis. "Pardon me,--I can't help it,--the Jockey Club,--composed
of jockeys!--it is too much!--the best joke. My dear, Alain, there is
some of the best blood of Europe in the Jockey Club; they would exclude
a plain bourgeois like me. But it is all the same: in one respect
you are quite right. Walk in a blouse if you please: you are still
Rochebriant; you would only be called eccentric. Alas! I am obliged to
send to London for my pantaloons: that comes of being a Lemercier. But
here we are in the Palais Royal."

CHAPTER II.

The salons of the Trois Freres were crowded; our friends found a table
with some little difficulty. Lemercier proposed a private cabinet,
which, for some reason known to himself, the Marquis declined.

Lemercier spontaneously and unrequested ordered the dinner and the
wines.

While waiting for their oysters, with which, when in season, French
'bon-vivants' usually commence their dinner, Lemercier looked round the
salon with that air of inimitable, scrutinizing, superb impertinence
which distinguishes the Parisian dandy. Some of the ladies returned
his glance coquettishly, for Lemercier was 'beau garcon;' others turned
aside indignantly, and muttered something to the gentlemen dining with
them. The said gentlemen, when old, shook their heads, and continued
to eat unmoved; when young, turned briskly round, and looked at first
fiercely at M. Lemercier, but, encountering his eye through the glass
which he had screwed into his socket, noticing the hardihood of his
countenance and the squareness of his shoulders, even they turned back
to the tables, shook their heads, and continued to eat unmoved, just
like the old ones.

"Ah!" cried Lemercier, suddenly, "here comes a man you should know, 'mon
cher.' He will tell you how to place your money,--a rising man, a coming
man, a future minister. Ah! 'bon jour,' Duplessis, 'bon jour,'" kissing
his hand to a gentleman who had just entered and was looking about him
for a seat. He was evidently well and favourably known at the Trois
Freres. The waiters had flocked round him, and were pointing to a
table by the window, which a saturnine Englishman, who had dined off a
beefsteak and potatoes, was about to vacate.

M. Duplessis, having first