er than the rest of us, and mixes us
up with low people; his father was an apothecary, and his mother is
a nurse; his sister works in a laundry, and he himself is a printer's
foreman."

"If his father sold biscuits for worms" (_vers_), said Jacques, "he
ought to have made his son take them."

"He is continuing in his father's line of business, for the stuff that
he has just been reading to us is a drug in the market, it seems," said
Stanislas, striking one of his most killing attitudes. "Drug for drug, I
would rather have something else."

Every one apparently combined to humiliate Lucien by various
aristocrats' sarcasms. Lili the religious thought it a charitable deed
to use any means of enlightening Nais, and Nais was on the brink of a
piece of folly. Francis the diplomatist undertook the direction of the
silly conspiracy; every one was interested in the progress of the drama;
it would be something to talk about to-morrow. The ex-consul, being far
from anxious to engage in a duel with a young poet who would fly into a
rage at the first hint of insult under his lady's eyes, was wise enough
to see that the only way of dealing Lucien his deathblow was by the
spiritual arm which was safe from vengeance. He therefore followed
the example set by Chatelet the astute, and went to the Bishop. Him he
proceeded to mystify.

He told the Bishop that Lucien's mother was a woman of uncommon powers
and great modesty, and that it was she who found the subjects for her
son's verses. Nothing pleased Lucien so much, according to the guileful
Francis, as any recognition of her talents--he worshiped his mother.
Then, having inculcated these notions, he left the rest to time. His
lordship was sure to bring out the insulting allusion, for which he had
been so carefully prepared, in the course of conversation.

When Francis and the Bishop joined the little group where Lucien stood,
the circle who gave him the cup of hemlock to drain by little sips
watched him with redoubled interest. The poet, luckless young man, being
a total stranger, and unaware of the manners and customs of the house,
could only look at Mme. de Bargeton and give embarrassed answers to
embarrassing questions. He knew neither the names nor condition of the
people about him; the women's silly speeches made him blush for them,
and he was at his wits' end for a reply. He felt, moreover, how very far
removed he was from these divinities of Angouleme when he heard himself