gruff or faltering, as one gazed upon those widely different
physiognomies, some violent, barbarous, vulgar, others hyper-civilized,
worn, suggestive only of the Boulevard and as it were flaccid, one noted
that the same diversity was evident also among the servants who, some
apparently lads just out of an office, insolent in manner, with heads
of hair like a dentist's or a bath-attendant's, busied themselves among
Ethiopians standing motionless and shining like candelabra of black
marble, and it was impossible to say exactly where one was; in any case,
you would never have imagined yourself to be in the Place Vendome, right
in the beating heart and very centre of the life of our modern Paris.
Upon the table there was a like importation of exotic dishes, saffron or
anchovy sauces, spices mixed up with Turkish delicacies, chickens with
fried almonds, and all this taken together with the banality of the
interior, the gilding of the panels, the shrill ringing of the new
bells, gave the impression of a _table d'hote_ in some big hotel
in Smyrna or Calcutta, or of a luxurious dining-saloon on board a
transatlantic liner, the "Pereire" or the "Sinai."

It might seem that this diversity among the guests--I was about to say
among the passengers--ought to have caused the meal to be animated and
noisy. Far otherwise. They all ate nervously, watching each other out
of eye-corners, and even those most accustomed to society, those who
appeared the most at their ease, had in their glance the wandering look
and the distraction of a fixed idea, a feverish anxiety which caused
them to speak without relevance and to listen without understanding a
word of what was being said to them.

Suddenly the door of the dining-room opened.

"Ah, here comes Jenkins!" exclaimed the Nabob delightedly. "Welcome,