is Government," cried
Blondet.

"Is there any sufficiently serious personage to go down to speak to
him?" asked Finot. "Here, du Bruel, you are an official; bring up the
Duc de Rhetore and the Minister, and give your arm to Tullia. Dear me!
Tullia, how handsome you are to-night!"

"We shall be thirteen at table!" exclaimed Matifat, paling visibly.

"No, fourteen," said a voice in the doorway, and Florentine appeared.
"I have come to look after 'milord Cardot,'" she added, speaking with a
burlesque English accent.

"And besides," said Lousteau, "Claude Vignon came with Blondet."

"I brought him here to drink," returned Blondet, taking up an inkstand.
"Look here, all of you, you must use all your wit before those fifty-six
bottles of wine drive it out. And, of all things, stir up du Bruel; he
is a vaudevillist, he is capable of making bad jokes if you get him to
concert pitch."

And Lucien wrote his first newspaper article at the round table in
Florine's boudoir, by the light of the pink candles lighted by Matifat;
before such a remarkable audience he was eager to show what he could do.

THE PANORAMA-DRAMATIQUE.

First performance of the _Alcalde in a Fix_, an imbroglio in three
acts.--First appearance of Mademoiselle Florine.--Mademoiselle
Coralie.--Vignol.

People are coming and going, walking and talking, everybody is
looking for something, nobody finds anything. General hubbub. The
Alcalde has lost his daughter and found his cap, but the cap does
not fit; it must belong to some thief. Where is the thief? People
walk and talk, and come and go more than ever. Finally the Alcalde
finds a man without his daughter, and his daughter without the
man, which is satisfactory for the magistrate, but not for the
audience. Quiet being resorted, the Alcalde tries to examine the
man. Behold a venerable Alcalde, sitting in an Alcalde's great
armchair, arranging the sleeves of his Alcalde's gown. Only in
Spain do Alcaldes cling to their enormous sleeves and wear plaited
lawn ruffles about the magisterial throat, a good half of an
Alcalde's business on the stage in Paris. This particular Alcalde,
wheezing and waddling about like an asthmatic old man, is Vignol,
on whom Potier's mantle has fallen; a young actor who personates
old age so admirably that the oldest men in the audience cannot
help laughing. With that quavering voice of his, that bald
forehead, and