not have been handy and agreeable to note down
that the recent law on sugars had been voted by the solid majority of
absinthe and bitters, or to know that the Cabinet's fall, day before
yesterday, might be attributed simply to the disloyal and perfidious
abandonment of the bitter mints or blackcurrant wine?

Jocquelet, who professed the most advanced opinions in politics,
distributed several riotous and patronizing handshakes among these
future statesmen as he entered the establishment, followed by Amedee.

Here, there were still more of politics, and also poets and literary
men. They lived a sort of hurly-burly life, on good terms, but one
could not get them confounded, for the politicians were all beard, the
litterateurs, all hair.

Jocquelet directed his steps without hesitation toward the magnificent
red head of the whimsical poet, Paul Sillery, a handsome young fellow
with a wide-awake face, who was nonchalantly stretched upon the red
velvet cushion of the window-seat, before a table, around which were
three other heads of thick hair worthy of our early kings.

"My dear Paul," said Jocquelet, in his most thrilling voice, handing
Sillery Amedee's manuscript, "here are some verses that I think
are superb, and I am going to recite them as soon as I can, at some
entertainment or benefit. Read them and give us your opinion of them. I
present their author to you, Monsieur Amedee Violette. Amedee, I present
you to Monsieur Paul Sillery."

All the heads of hair, framing young and amiable faces, turned curiously
toward the newcomer, whom Paul Sillery courteously invited to be seated,
with the established formula, "What will you take?" Then he began to
read the lines that the comedian had given him.

Amedee, seated on the edge of his chair, was distracted with timidity,
for Paul Sillery already enjoyed a certain reputation as a rising
poet, and had established a small literary sheet called La Guepe, which
published upon its first page caricatures of celebrated men with large
heads and little bodies, and Amedee had read in it some of Paul's poems,
full of impertinence and charm. An author whose work had been published!
The editor of a journal! The idea was stunning to poor innocent
Violette, who was not aware then that La Guepe could not claim forty
subscribers. He considered Sillery something wonderful, and waited with
a beating heart for the verdict of so formidable a judge. At the end
of a few moments Sillery said,