guests attacked it vigorously and in silence. After the Rhine wine all
tongues were unloosened, and as soon as they had eaten the Normandy sole-
oh! what glorious appetites at twenty years of age!--the five young men
all talked at once. What a racket! Exclamations crossed one another
like rockets. Gustave, forcing his weak voice, boasted of the
performances of a "stepper" that he had tried that morning in the Allee
des Cavaliers. He would have been much better off had he stayed in his
bed and taken cod-liver oil. Maurice called out to the boy to uncork the
Chateau-Leoville. Amedee, having spoken of his drama to the comedian
Gorju, called Jocquelet, that person, speaking in his bugle-like voice
that came through his bugle-shaped nose, set himself up at once as a man
of experience, giving his advice, and quoting, with admiration, Talma's
famous speech to a dramatic poet: "Above all, no fine verses!" Arthur
Papillon, who was destined for the courts, thought it an excellent time
to lord it over the tumult of the assembly himself, and bleated out a
speech of Jules Favre that he had heard the night before in the
legislative assembly.

The timid Amedee was defeated at the start in this melee of conversation.
Maurice also kept silent, with a slightly disdainful smile under his
golden moustache, and an attack of coughing soon disabled Gustave.
Alone, like two ships in line who let out, turn by turn, their volleys,
the lawyer and the actor continued their cannonading. Arthur Papillon,
who belonged to the Liberal opposition and wished that the Imperial
government should come around to "a pacific and regular movement of
parliamentary institutions," was listened to for a time, and explained,
in a clear, full voice the last article in the 'Courrier du Dimanche'.
But, bursting out in his terrible voice, which seemed like all of
Gideon's trumpets blowing at once, the comedian took up the offensive,
and victoriously declared a hundred foolish things--saying, for example,