ng to make a man comfortable. I will speak
to my protector for you," said M. Boyer, with irony. "Take the place; it
is a fortune which has roots to it, and one may hold on by it for a long
time. It is not like the unfortunate million of M. le Vicomte, a
snowball, and nothing else,--a ray of a Parisian sun, and that's all. I
soon saw that I should only be a bird of passage here. It's a pity, for
the establishment did us credit; and, to the last moment, I will serve
M. le Vicomte with the respect and esteem due to him."

"_Ma foi_, my dear Boyer, I thank you, and accept your proposition. And,
now I think of it, suppose I were to propose the stud of M. le Vicomte
to this young duke! It is all ready, and known and admired all over
Paris."

"True, you may make a profitable affair of it."

"And you, why don't you propose to him this house so admirably fitted up
in every way? What could he find better?"

"Bravo! Edwards, you are a man of sense decidedly; you have suggested a
most excellent idea. We must ask the vicomte; he is such a good master
that he will not refuse to speak for us to the young duke. He may say
that, as he is going on the legation of Gerolstein, to which he is
attached, he wishes to get rid of his whole establishment. Let us see.
One hundred and sixty thousand francs for the house furnished, twenty
thousand francs for plate and pictures, fifty thousand francs for
stable and carriages, that makes two hundred and thirty thousand francs;
and it is a bargain for a young man who wishes to be set up at once in
the first style."

"And the horses!"

"And the capital table! Gallefroi, his cook, will leave a hundred times
better off than when he came here first. M. le Vicomte has given him
capital instruction,--has regularly refined him!"

"They say, too, that M. le Vicomte is such a capital player?"

"Admirable! Gaining large sums with even more indifference than he loses
them! And yet I never saw any one lose with better taste!"

"And the women, Boyer,--the women! Ah, you could tell a tale! You have
the sole _entree_ to the apartments of the ground floor--"

"I have my secrets as you have yours, my dear fellow."

"Mine?"

"When M. le Vicomte ran his horses, had you not your confidences? I will
not attack the honesty of the jockeys of your opponents; but there were
reports--"

"Hush, my dear Boyer, a gentleman never compromises the reputation of a
jockey who is against him, and has the weakness to lis