cheese-cakes?" said Georges to the count.

"Thank you," replied the latter. "I never leave home without taking my
cup of coffee and cream."

"Don't you eat anything between meals? How bourgeois, Marais, Place
Royale, that is!" cried Georges. "When he 'blagued' just now about his
crosses, I thought there was something in him," whispered the Eastern
hero to the painter. "However, we'll set him going on his decorations,
the old tallow-chandler! Come, my lad," he added, calling to Oscar,
"drink me down the glass poured out for the chandler; that will start
your moustache."

Oscar, anxious to play the man, swallowed the second glass of wine,
and ate three more cheese-cakes.

"Good wine, that!" said Pere Leger, smacking his lips.

"It is all the better," said Georges, "because it comes from Bercy.
I've been to Alicante myself, and I know that this wine no more
resembles what is made there than my arm is like a windmill. Our
made-up wines are a great deal better than the natural ones in their
own country. Come, Pierrotin, take a glass! It is a great pity your
horses can't take one, too; we might go faster."

"Forward, march!" cried Pierrotin, amid a mighty cracking of whips,
after the travellers were again boxed up.

It was now eleven o'clock. The weather, which had been cloudy,
cleared; the breeze swept off the mists, and the blue of the sky