s amazement, Pere Lebuffle called the
greater part of his clients "thou," and as soon as the newcomers were
seated at table, Amedee asked Sillery, in a low voice, the cause of this
familiarity.

"It is caused by the hard times, my dear Violette," responded the
editor of 'La Guepe' as he unfolded his napkin. "There is no longer a
'Maecenas' or 'Lawrence the Magnificent.' The last patron of literature
and art is Pere Lebufle. This wretched cook, who has perhaps never read
a book or seen a picture, has a fancy for painters and poets, and allows
them to cultivate that plant, Debt, which, contrary to other vegetables,
grows all the more, the less it is watered with instalments. We must
pardon the good man," said he, lowering his voice, "his little sin--a
sort of vanity. He wishes to be treated like a comrade and friend by
the artists. Those who have several accounts brought forward upon his
ledger, arrive at the point of calling him 'thou,' and I, alas! am of
that number. Thanks to that, I am going to make you drink something a
little less purgative than the so-called wine which is turning blue
in that carafe, and of which I advise you to be suspicious. I say,
Lebuffle, my friend here, Monsieur Amedee Violette, will be, sooner or
later, a celebrated poet. Treat him accordingly, my good fellow, and go
and get us a bottle of Moulins-Vent."

The conversation meanwhile became general between the bearded and
long-haired men. Is it necessary to say that they were all animated,
both politicians and 'litterateurs', with the most revolutionary
sentiments? At the very beginning, with the sardines, which evidently
had been pickled in lamp-oil, a terribly hairy man, the darkest of them
all, with a beard that grew up into its owner's eyes and then sprung out
again in tufts from his nose and ears, presented some elegiac regrets to
the memory of Jean-Paul Marat, and declared that at the next revolution
it would be necessary to realize the programme of that delightful friend
of the people, and make one hundred thousand heads fall.

"By thunder, Flambard, you have a heavy hand!" exclaimed one of
the least important of beards, one of those that degenerate into
side-whiskers as they become conservative. "One hundred thousand heads!"

"It is the minimum," replied the sanguinary beard.

Now, it had just been revealed to Amedee that under this ferocious beard
was concealed a photographer, well known for his failures, and the young
man could