hich are the everyday
flavouring of life.

'Ah, it's Teyssedre's day,' thought Madame Astier, as she took her seat,
her best dress rustling as she did so. She was a little surprised at not
receiving the compliment with which her husband never failed to welcome
her 'Wednesday' costume, shabby as it was. Reckoning that this bad
temper would go off with the first mouthfuls, she waited before
beginning her attack. But, though _the Master_ went on eating, his ill
humour visibly increased. Everything was wrong; the wine tasted of the
cork; the balls of boiled beef were burnt.

'And all because your M. Fage kept you waiting this morning,' cried
Corentine angrily from the adjoining kitchen. She showed her shiny
pitted face for a moment at the hatch in the wall through which, in the
days of the _table d'hote_, they used to pass the dishes. She shut
it with a bang; upon which Astier muttered, 'Really that girl's
impudence----' He was in truth much annoyed that the name of Fage had
been mentioned before his wife. And sure enough at any other moment
Madame Astier would not have failed to say, 'Oh, Fage the bookbinder
here again!' and there would have followed a domestic scene; on all
which Corentine reckoned when she threw in her artful speech. To-day,
however, it was all-important that the master should not be irritated,
but prepared by skilful stages for the intended petition. He was talked
to, for instance, about the health of Loisillon, the perpetual
secretary of the Academie, who, it seemed, was getting worse and worse.
Loisillon's post and his rooms in the Institute were to come to Leonard
Astier as a compensation for the office which he had lost; and though he
was really attached to his dying colleague, still the prospect of a good
salary, an airy and comfortable residence, and other advantages had its
attractions. He was perhaps ashamed to think of the death in this light,
but in the privacy of his household he did so without blinking. But
to-day even that did not bring a smile. 'Poor M. Loisillon!' said Madame
Astier's thin voice; 'he begins to be uncertain about his words. La
vaux was telling us yesterday at the Duchess's, he can only say "a
cu-curiosity, a cu-curiosity," and,' she added, compressing her lips and
drawing up her long neck, 'he is on the Dictionary Committee.'

Astier-Rehu did not move an eyebrow.

'It is not a bad story,' said he, clapping his jaw with a magisterial
air. 'But, as I have said somewhere