face would assume in the course of a single minute. He was managing
director of the Territorial Bank of Corsica, a vast financial
enterprise, and had now come to the house for the first time, introduced
by Monpavon; he occupied accordingly a place of honour. On the other
side of the Nabob was an old gentleman, buttoned up to the chin in a
frock-coat having a straight collar without lapels, like an Oriental
tunic, his face slashed by a thousand little bloodshot veins and wearing
a white moustache of military cut. It was Brahim Bey, the most valiant
colonel of the Regency of Tunis, aide-de-camp of the former Bey who had
made the fortune of Jansoulet. The glorious exploits of this warrior
showed themselves written in wrinkles, in blemishes wrought by
debauchery upon the nerveless under-lip that hung as it were relaxed,
and upon his eyes without lashes, inflamed and red. It was a head such
as one may see in the dock at certain criminal trials that are held with
closed doors. The other guests were seated pell-mell, just as they had
happened to arrive or to find themselves, for the house was open to
everybody, and the table was laid every morning for thirty persons.

There were present the manager of the theatre financed by the Nabob,
Cardailhac, renowned for his wit almost as much as for his insolvencies,
a marvellous carver who, while he was engaged in severing the limbs of
a partridge, would prepare one of his witticisms and deposit it with
a wing upon the plate which was presented to him. He worked up his
witticisms instead of improvising them, and the new fashion of serving
meats, _a la Russe_ and carved beforehand, had been fatal to him by its
removal of all excuse for a preparatory silence. Consequently it was the
general remark that his vogue was on the decline. Parisian, moreover,
a dandy to the finger tips, and, as he himself was wont to boast, "with
not one particle of superstition in his whole body," a characteristic
which permitted him to give very piquant details concerning the ladies