iful just
then. Learning accidentally on this occasion that his publisher had no
carpet in his drawing-room, the novelist surprised him the same
evening by sending some men with one that he had bought for him. This
present Werdet suitably acknowledged a short time after; and,
throughout the period of their intimacy, there were a good few
compliments of the kind exchanged, which appear to have cost the man
of business dearer than the man of letters.

To tell the truth, Balzac had a knack of presuming that something he
intended doing was already done. One notorious example was the white
horse he asserted, in presence of a number of guests assembled in
Madame de Girardin's drawing-room, had been given by him to Jules
Sandeau. The animal in question, he said, he had bought from a
well-known dealer; the celebrated trainer Baucher had tested it and
declared it to be the most perfect animal ever ridden. For nearly
half-an-hour the speaker expatiated on the points of this wonderful
steed, and thoroughly convinced his audience of the gift having been
already bestowed. A few evenings later, Jules Sandeau met Balzac at
the same house, and the subject was of course reverted to by their
mutual friends. As the novelist asked him whether he liked the horse,
Jules, not to be outvied, answered with an enumeration of its
qualities. But he never saw the animal for all that.

Another instance equally amusing was furnished at a dinner given in
honour of Balzac by Henri de Latouche, who had not then broken with
him. At dessert, the host sketched the plan of a novel he intended to
write, and Balzac, who had been drinking champagne, warmly applauded;
"The thing," he said, "is capital. Even summarily related, it is
charming. What will it be when the talent, style, and wit of the
author have enhanced it!" Next evening, at Madame de Girardin's, he
reproduced, with his native fire and power of description, the
narration he had heard the night before--reproduced it as his own
--persuaded it was his own. Every one was enthusiastic, and
complimented him. But the matter was bruited abroad. Latouche
recognized in Balzac's proposed new novel the creation he had
himself unfolded; and wrote a sharp protest which, for once, forced
its recipient to distinguish fact from fiction, and what was his
share, what another's, in the output of ideas. Yet he might be
excused for some of his frequent fits of forgetfulness, since he
sowed his own conceptions and dis