parliament. "What have you been doing, Papillon?" Papillon had studied
law, and was secretary of the Patru Conference, of course.

Amedee immediately recognized the third guest.

"What! Gustave!" exclaimed he, joyously.

Yes! Gustave, the former "dunce," the one they had called "Good-luck"
because his father had made an immense fortune in guano. Not one bit
changed was Gustave! The same deep-set eyes and greenish complexion.
But what style! English from the tips of his pointed shoes to the
horseshoe scarfpin in his necktie. One would say that he was a horse-
jockey dressed in his Sunday best. What was this comical Gustave doing
now? Nothing. His father has made two hundred thousand pounds' income
dabbling in certain things, and Gustave is getting acquainted with that
is all--which means to wake up every morning toward noon, with a bitter
mouth caused from the last night's supper, and to be surprised every
morning at dawn at the baccarat table, after spending five hours saying
"Bac!" in a stifled, hollow voice. Gustave understands life, and, taking
into consideration his countenance like a death's-head, it may lead him
to make the acquaintance of something entirely different. But who thinks
of death at his age? Gustave wishes to know life, and when a fit of
coughing interrupts him in one of his idiotic bursts of laughter, his
comrades at the Gateux Club tell him that he has swallowed the wrong way.
Wretched Gustave, so be it!

Meanwhile the boy with the juggler's motions appeared with the soup,
and made exactly the same gestures when he uncovered the tureen as Robert
Houdin would have made, and one was surprised not to see a bunch of
flowers or a live rabbit fly out. But no! it was simply soup, and the