"Bah!" exclaimed M. Bichet.
"Your own name? Not your own name?" queried M. Pieyre.
"Yes, my name, my very own name! It was at the marriage contract of ... what's his name ... you know, who married the daughter of so and so...?"
"How can I assist you on such slight information as that?"
"Oh! dear, dear! the daughter of so and so ... who is my colleague at the Academy?... who writes comedies ... who wrote ... I cannot remember what it was.... A play that Mercier had already done; you know well enough?"
"Alexandre Duval?..."
"Yes, yes; it was at the signing of the contract of what's his name ... who married his daughter ... an architect ... who wrote a work on something ... that was burned ... in the eruption of Vesuvius, where somebody or other died...."
"Oh, yes! Marois, who wrote a work on Pompeii, where Pliny died?" I hazarded timidly.
"That is exactly it!... Thanks, monsieur."
And he quietly stretched himself back in his arm-chair, after having first made me a gracious bow.