“Great news! The tabor-player has made his début—”
They heard Hortense murmur: “At last!” and Numa was radiant.
“Success, was it not?”
“Do you think so? I have not read the article; but here are three columns on the front sheet of the Messenger!”
“There’s one more whom I discovered!” said the Minister, who had seated himself again with his thumbs in the armholes of his waist-coat. “Come on, read it to us.”
Mme. Le Quesnoy having called attention to the fact that the dinner-bell had sounded, Hortense hastily answered that it was only the first bell, and, her cheek resting on her hand, she listened in a pretty attitude of smiling expectancy. Bompard read:
“Is it due to the Minister of the Fine Arts or to the Director of the Opera that the Parisian public suffered such a grotesque mystification as that with which it was victimized last night?—”
They all started, with the exception of Bompard, who, under the impetus of his gait as a fine reader, lulled by the sonorous sound of his own voice and without taking in what he was reading, looked from one to the other, surprised at their astonishment.
“Well,” said Numa, “go on, go on!”
“In any case, it is the Honorable Roumestan who must shoulder the responsibility. He it is who has lugged up from his province this savage and odd-looking piper, this goat-whistler—”