n allayed, thanks to our
arrival, thanks also to the judicious words of M. Barreau, a man of
mature years, sedate and majestic, of my own type. He is the Nabob's
cook, formerly _chef_ at the Cafe Anglais, and M. Cardailhac, manager
of the Nouveautes, secured him for his friend. To see him in his black
coat and white cravat, with his handsome, full, clean-shaven face, you
would take him for one of the great functionaries of the Empire. To be
sure, a cook in a house where the table is set for thirty people every
morning, in addition to Madame's table, and where everyone is fed on
the best and the extra best, is no ordinary cook-shop artist. He
receives a colonel's salary, with board and lodging, and then the
perquisites! No one has any idea of what the perquisites amount to in a
place like that. So every one addressed him with great respect, with
the consideration due to a man of his importance: "Monsieur Barreau"
here, "my dear Monsieur Barreau" there. You must not imagine that the
servants in a house are all chums and social equals. Nowhere is the
hierarchy more strictly observed than among them. For instance, I
noticed at M. Noel's party that the coachmen did not fraternize with
their grooms, nor the valets de chambre with the footmen and
out-riders, any more than the steward and butler mingled with the
scullions; and when M. Barreau cracked a little joke, no matter what it
was, it was a pleasure to see how amused his underlings seemed to be. I
have no fault to find with these things. Quite the contrary. As our
dean used to say: "A society without a hierarchy is a house without a
stairway." But the fact seemed to me worth noting in these memoirs.

The party, I need not say, lacked something of its brilliancy until the
return of its fairest ornaments, the ladies who had gone to look after
little Tom; ladies' maids with glossy, well-oiled hair, housekeepers in
beribboned caps, negresses, governesses, among whom I at once acquired
much prestige, thanks to my respectable appearance and the nickname "my
uncle" which the youngest of those attractive females were pleased to
bestow upon me. I tell you there was no lack of second-hand finery,
silk and lace, even much faded velvet, eight-button gloves cleaned
several times and perfumery picked up on Madame's toilet-table; but
their faces were happy, their minds given over to gayety, and I had no
difficulty in forming a very lively little party in one corner--always
perfectly pro