rise in "parties," went on eating, making as much
noise with their jaws as horses over a manger, and paying no further
heed to the old man.

"I will come again to-night," said the stranger at length, with the
tenacious desire, peculiar to the unfortunate, to catch humanity at
fault.

The only irony allowed to poverty is to drive Justice and Benevolence to
unjust denials. When a poor wretch has convicted Society of falsehood,
he throws himself more eagerly on the mercy of God.

"What do you think of that for a cracked pot?" said Simonnin, without
waiting till the old man had shut the door.

"He looks as if he had been buried and dug up again," said a clerk.

"He is some colonel who wants his arrears of pay," said the head clerk.

"No, he is a retired concierge," said Godeschal.

"I bet you he is a nobleman," cried Boucard.

"I bet you he has been a porter," retorted Godeschal. "Only porters are
gifted by nature with shabby box-coats, as worn and greasy and frayed
as that old body's. And did you see his trodden-down boots that let the
water in, and his stock which serves for a shirt? He has slept in a dry
arch."

"He may be of noble birth, and yet have pulled the doorlatch," cried
Desroches. "It has been known!"

"No," Boucard insisted, in the midst of laughter, "I maintain that he
was a brewer in 1789, and a colonel in the time of the Republic."

"I bet theatre tickets round that he never was a soldier," said
Godeschal.

"Done with you," answered Boucard.

"Monsieur! Monsieur!" shouted the little messenger, opening the window.

"What are you at now, Simonnin?" asked Boucard.

"I am calling him that you may ask him whether he is a colonel or a
porter; he must know."

All the clerks laughed. As to the old man, he was already coming
upstairs again.

"What can we say to him?" cried Godeschal.

"Leave it to me," replied Boucard.

The poor man came in nervously, his eyes cast down, perhaps not to
betray how hungry he was by looking too greedily at the eatables.

"Monsieur," said Boucard, "will you have the kindness to leave your
name, so that M. Derville may know----"

"Chabert."

"The Colonel who was killed at Eylau?" asked Hure, who, having so far
said nothing, was jealous of adding a jest to all the others.

"The same, monsieur," replied the good man, with antique simplicity. And
he went away.

"Whew!"

"Done brown!"

"Poof!"

"Oh!"

"Ah!"

"Boum!"

"The old rogue!"

"Ting-a-rin