commission for two portraits: one, present day, let us say, moderately
attractive--"

"I decline to libel you."

"O, flatterer! The other, depicting my faded aspect before I discovered
the priceless secrets of the treatment that I practise in the rue Baba.
I shall hang them both in the reception-room. I must look at least a
decade older in the 'Before' than in the 'After,' and it must, of
course, present the appearance of having been painted some years ago.
That can be faked?"

"Perfectly."

"You accept?" "I embrace your feet. You have saved my life; you have
preserved my hopefulness, you have restored my youth!"

"It is my profession to preserve and restore."

"Ah, mon Dieu!" gasped Flamant in a paroxysm of adoration. "Aurore, I
can no longer refrain from avowing that--"

At this instant the door opened, and there entered solemnly nine young
men, garbed in such habiliments of woe as had never before been seen
perambulating, even on the figures of undertakers. The foremost bore a
wreath of immortelles, which he laid in devout silence on the dinner-table.

"Permit me," said Flamant, recovering himself by a stupendous effort:
"monsieur Tricotrin, the poet--madame Aurore."