"Excellent!" said she. "One is not enough for a tragedian But where is
Alphonse Karr?"

"I have been looking for him all the evening," said a tall man, with an
iron-gray beard. "He told me he was coming; but authors are capricious
beings--the slaves of the pen."

"True; he lives by his pen--others die by it," said Rachel bitterly. "By
the way, has any one seen Scribe's new Vaudeville?"

"I have," replied a bald little gentleman with a red and green ribbon in
his button-hole.

"And your verdict?"

"The plot is not ill-conceived; but Scribe is only godfather to the
piece. It is almost entirely written by Duverger, his _collaborateur_."

"The life of a _collaborateur_," said Rachel, "is one long act of
self-abnegation. Another takes all the honor--he all the labor. Thus
soldiers fall, and their generals reap the glory."

"A _collaborateur_," said a cynical-looking man who had not yet spoken,
"is a hackney vehicle which one hires on the road to fame, and dismisses
at the end of the journey."

"Sometimes without paying the fare," added a gentleman who had till now
been examining, weapon by weapon, all the curious poignards and pistols
on the table. "But what is this singular ornament?"

And he held up what appeared to be a large bone, perforated in several
places.

The bald little man with the red and green ribbon uttered an exclamation
of surprise.

"It is a tibia!" said he, examining it through his double eye-glass.

"And what of that?" laughed Rachel. "Is it so wonderful to find one leg
in a collection of arms? However, not to puzzle you, I may as well
acknowledge that it was brought to me from Rome by a learned Italian,
and is a curious antique. The Romans made flutes of the leg-bones of
their enemies, and this is one of them."

"A melodious barbarism!" exclaimed one.

"Puts a 'stop,' at all events, to the enemy's flight!" said another.

"Almost as good as drinking out of his skull," added a third.

"Or as eating him, _tout de bon_," said Rachel.

"There must be a certain satisfaction in cannibalism," observed the
cynic who had spoken before. "There are people upon whom one would sup
willingly."

"As, for instance, critics, who are our natural enemies," said Rachel.
"_C'est a dire_, if critics were not too sour to be eaten."

"Nay, with the sweet sauce of vengeance!"

"You speak feelingly, Monsieur de Musset. I am almost sorry, for your
sake, that cannibalism is out of fashion!"

"It is one