combined to form the pestilence which filled the streets with unregarded
hearses--bronchitis, pneumonia, smallpox, a strange sort of spurious
dysentery much more speedily fatal than the genuine. The three men, a
year before so sleek, looked like ghosts under the withering sky; yet all
three retained embers of the native Parisian humour, which their very
breath on meeting sufficed to kindle up into jubilant sparks or rapid
flashes.

"There are two consolations," said Savarin, as the friends strolled or
rather crawled towards the Boulevards--"two consolations for the gourmet
and for the proprietor in these days of trial for the gourmand, because
the price of truffles is come down."

"Truffles!" gasped De Breze, with watering mouth; "impossible! They are
gone with the age of gold."

"Not so. I speak on the best authority--my laundress; for she attends
the _succursale_ in the Rue de Chateaudun; and if the poor woman, being,
luckily for me, a childless widow, gets a morsel she can spare, she sells
it to me."

"Sells it!" feebly exclaimed Lemercier. "Croesus! you have money then,
and can buy?"

"Sells it--on credit! I am to pension her for life if I live to have
money again. Don't interrupt me. This honest woman goes this morning to
the _succursale_. I promise myself a delicious _bifteck_ of horse. She
gains the _succursale_, and the employee informs her that there is
nothing left in his store except--truffles. A glut of those in the
market allows him to offer her a bargain-seven francs _la boite_. Send