another voice cried no less loudly that money was the fulcrum.

He would not stay any longer on the scene of his collapse and defeat,
and went towards the Palais Royal. He did not know the topography of
his quarter yet, and was obliged to ask his way. Then he went to
Very's and ordered dinner by way of an initiation into the pleasures
of Paris, and a solace for his discouragement. A bottle of Bordeaux,
oysters from Ostend, a dish of fish, a partridge, a dish of macaroni
and dessert,--this was the _ne plus ultra_ of his desire. He enjoyed
this little debauch, studying the while how to give the Marquise
d'Espard proof of his wit, and redeem the shabbiness of his grotesque
accoutrements by the display of intellectual riches. The total of the
bill drew him down from these dreams, and left him the poorer by fifty
of the francs which were to have gone such a long way in Paris. He
could have lived in Angouleme for a month on the price of that dinner.
Wherefore he closed the door of the palace with awe, thinking as he
did so that he should never set foot in it again.

"Eve was right," he said to himself, as he went back under the stone
arcading for some more money. "There is a difference between Paris
prices and prices in L'Houmeau."

He gazed in at the tailors' windows on the way, and thought of the
costumes in the Garden of the Tuileries.

"No," he exclaimed, "I will _not_ appear before Mme. d'Espard dressed
out as I am."

He fled to his inn, fleet as a stag, rushed up to his room, took out a
hundred crowns, and went down again to the Palais Royal, where his