amusement of crumbling bread to fishes.

"This is how the drama was disclosed of this second inner life, so
deeply ravaged and storm-tossed, where, in a circle overlooked by
Dante in his _Inferno_, horrible joys had their birth."

The Consul-General paused.



"On a certain Monday," he resumed, "as chance would have it, M. le
President de Grandville and M. de Serizy (at that time Vice-President
of the Council of State) had come to hold a meeting at Comte Octave's
house. They formed a committee of three, of which I was the secretary.
The Count had already got me the appointment of Auditor to the Council
of State. All the documents requisite for their inquiry into the
political matter privately submitted to these three gentlemen were
laid out on one of the long tables in the library. MM. de Grandville
and de Serizy had trusted to the Count to make the preliminary
examination of the papers relating to the matter. To avoid the
necessity for carrying all the papers to M. de Serizy, as president of
the commission, it was decided that they should meet first in the Rue
Payenne. The Cabinet at the Tuileries attached great importance to
this piece of work, of which the chief burden fell on me--and to which
I owed my appointment, in the course of that year, to be Master of
Appeals.

"Though the Comtes de Grandville and de Serizy, whose habits were much
the same as my patron's, never dined away from home, we were still
discussing the matter at a late hour, when we were startled by the