told us, to commemorate his final adieu to his bachelorhood.

Dupréval is a solicitor; an excellent fellow, neither handsome nor ugly, but a financier, a man of figures and calculations; he is entering into marriage as one enters into any large commercial speculation. He will certainly keep his word and abandon the follies of a bachelor, or I shall be very much astonished; he is a man who will make his way in the world; he has a goal—wealth; and he marches constantly toward it, never turning aside from the path.

I admire such men, unbending in their determination, and incapable of being turned aside from the line of conduct they have marked out for themselves; I admire them, but I shall never imitate them. Chance is such a fascinating thing, and it is such good fun to trust to it!

Next to Dupréval sat a stout young man, of medium height, but heavily built, high-colored, with the bloom and brilliancy of the peach ever on his cheeks. Unluckily, that never-failing freshness of complexion was his only beauty, if, indeed, such pronounced coloring is a beauty. His face beamed with good humor and denoted a leader in merrymaking; his mouth was a considerable gulf, and his eyes were infinitesimal; but, by way of compensation for occupying so little space, they were constantly in motion and very bright, their expression being decidedly bold when they rested upon the fair sex. His head was covered with a forest of flaxen hair. Such was Monsieur Balloquet, medical student; indeed, I believe he was a full-fledged doctor; but he had little practice, or, rather, none at all; he thought only of enjoying himself, like many doctors of his age. However, I do not mean to speak ill of Balloquet; for he was a very good fellow, and we were good friends.

Next to him was a young man of medium height, very thin, and with a very yellow complexion. An enormous beard, moustache, and whiskers covered so much of his face that one could see little more than his nose, which was long and thin, and his eyes, which were sunken and overshadowed by eyebrows that threatened to spread like his beard. This gentleman had an air of excessive weariness; that was all that one could make out beneath the chestnut shrubbery that had overgrown his face. His name was Fouvenard. I believe that he was in trade; but his business, whatever it was, seemed to have worn him out. But that fact did not prevent him from talking all the time of his past conquests and his present love affairs.

At my left was a rotund old party, with an amiable expression, and a full-blown, rubicund face. It was Monsieur Rouffignard, auctioneer, who was no longer young, but held his own manfully with the young men. He did not lag behind at table; indeed, I have an idea that he did not lag behind anywhere.

The next beyond was a very good-looking young man named Montricourt. He had rather a self-sufficient air, and, if you did not know him well, you might have called him conceited; but on talking with him, you found him much more agreeable than his pretentious costume would lead you to suppose.

Next came a man of thirty-six to forty years of age, rather ugly than handsome, with a round face, smooth hair, a shifty eye, and an equivocal smile, who spoke very slowly, and always seemed to reflect upon what he was going to say. His tone was honeyed, and his manners excessively polite. He was a clerk at the Treasury, by name Monsieur Faisandé. When someone, at the beginning of the dinner, said a few words that were a trifle free in tone, I noticed that he frowned, as a lady might have done who had strayed among us by mistake. After drinking five or six different kinds of wine, he pursed his lips less; but at every loose word that escaped us,—and such things are inevitable at a men's dinner which has no diplomatic object,—Monsieur Faisandé exclaimed:

"Hum! hum! Oh! messieurs, that's a little too bad! you go too far!"

"I may be mistaken," I thought; "but I would stake my head that Monsieur Faisandé is a hypocrite. That offended modesty is, to say the least, out of place, and almost discourteous toward the rest of us; for it seems a criticism of our conversation. In heaven's name, did the man think that if he came to dinner with a party of men, most of them young, and all high livers, he would hear no broad talk? There can be nothing so insufferable at a party as one of those people who seem determined to benumb your gayety by their sullen looks and their stiff manners. When such a person does appear in a merry company, he should be courteously turned out of doors."

What would you say of a doctor who should keep crying out during a dinner:

"Don't eat so much; you'll make yourself ill; don't take any of this, it's indigestible; don't drink any of that wine, it's too strong!"

No, indeed; at table the doctor disappears, or allows you to eat and drink anything; nobody can be more accommodating, even with his patients. And if doctors are so indulgent to the caprices of the stomach, by what right does a pedant or a hypocrite undertake to put my mind on a strict diet, and reprove the freedom of my conversation? There is an old proverb that says: "We must laugh with the fools;" or, if you please: "We must howl with the wolves."—Whence I conclude that it is, to say the least, in bad taste to appear shocked by a loose word or a vulgar jest, in such a company; and this Monsieur Faisandé's virtue seemed to be all the more doubtful because of his behavior.

In my review of the guests I must not forget Monsieur Dumouton, although I only knew him then from having been once or twice in his company. He was an individual who did not seem to be universally popular. Not that he had an unattractive physique; on the contrary, he was a tall, slender man, rather well than ill looking; his face was amiable, his strongly marked features did not lack character; his bright, black eyes and high color seemed to indicate a native of the Midi, although there was no trace of such origin in his speech. But poor Monsieur Dumouton was always dressed in such strange fashion, that it was difficult, on glancing at his costume, to avoid forming a melancholy opinion of his resources.

Imagine a threadbare coat, once green, but beginning to turn yellow, and made after the style of a dozen years before—that is to say, very short in front; in truth, it was also short in the skirts, which were very scant, and hardly hid the seat of his trousers, which were olive green and only just reached to his ankles, and fitted as close about the thigh and knee as a rope dancer's tights. His boots were always innocent of blacking, but, by way of compensation, were often coated with mud. Add to all this a plaid waistcoat, double-breasted, and buttoned to the chin; a black cravat, twisted into a rope; no shirt, collar, or gloves; and a beard that was usually of about three days' growth: such was Monsieur Dumouton's ordinary costume.

You will assume, perhaps, that he had donned other clothes to dine with us; if so, you would make a mistake: it seemed that he was not fond of change. Perhaps he had his reasons for that. However, he had made some slight ameliorations: he had a false collar, and a white muslin cravat, the ends of which were tied in a large knot that stood out conspicuously against the soiled background formed by the coat and waistcoat.

I cannot tell why it was that I imagined I had seen that cravat playing the part of draw-curtain at a window; it was an unkind thought, I confess, and I did my utmost to discard it; but, as you must know, evil thoughts are more persistent than good ones; and whenever my eyes fell on the ends of that enormous cravat, it seemed to me that I was sitting by a window.

I must tell you now who this gentleman was who dressed so ill. You will be greatly surprised to learn that he was an author—yes, a "truly author," as the children say; a man who wrote his plays himself,—especially as he had not the wherewithal to buy any,—and plays which were often very pretty, and which had been acted, and were being acted