"But what does the article say, anyway?" inquired M. Barreau; "who has read it?"
No one answered. Several had tried to buy the paper; but in Paris anything scandalous sells like hot cakes. At ten o'clock in the morning there was not a copy of the Messager to be had on the street. Thereupon one of my nieces, a sly hussy if ever there was one, had the happy thought of looking in the pocket of one of the numerous top-coats hanging in long rows against the walls of the dressing-room.
"Here you are!" said the merry creature triumphantly, drawing from the first pocket she searched a copy of the Messager, crumpled at the folds as if it had been well read.
"And here's another!" cried Tom Bois-l'Héry, who was investigating on his own account. A third top-coat, a third Messager. And so it was with them all; buried in the depths of the pocket, or with its title sticking out, the paper was everywhere, even as the article was certain to be in every mind; and we imagined the Nabob upstairs, exchanging amiable sentences with his guests, who could have recited to him word for word the horrible things printed concerning him. We all laughed heartily at the idea; but we were dying to know the contents of that interesting page.
"Here, Père Passajon, read it aloud to us."
That was the general desire, and I complied with it.
I do not know if you are like me, but when I read aloud I gargle with my voice, so to speak, I introduce inflections and flourishes, so that I do not understand a word of what I read, like those public singers to whom the meaning of the words they sing is of little consequence provided that the notes are all there. It was called "The Flower Boat." A decidedly mixed-up story with Chinese names, relating to a very rich mandarin, newly elevated to the first class, who had once kept a "flower boat" moored on the outskirts of a town near a fortified gate frequented by soldiers. At the last word of the article we knew no more than at the beginning. To be sure, we tried to wink and to look very knowing; but, frankly, there was no ground for it. A genuine rebus without a key; and we should still be staring at it, had not old Francis, who is the very devil for his knowledge of all sorts of things, explained to us that the fortified gate with soldiers must mean the École Militaire, and that the "flower boat" had not so pretty a name as that in good French. And he said the name aloud, despite the ladies. Such an explosion of exclamations, of "Ahs!" and "Ohs!" some saying: "I expected as much," others: "It isn't possible."
"I beg your pardon," added Francis, who was formerly a trumpeter in the 9th Lancers, Mora's and Monpavon's regiment, "I beg your pardon. Twenty years ago or more I was in barracks at the École Militaire, and I remember very well that there was near the barrier a dirty little dance-house called the Bal Jansoulet, with furnished rooms upstairs at five sous the hour, to which we used to adjourn between dances."
"You're an infernal liar!" cried M. Noël, fairly beside himself; "a sharper and liar like your master. Jansoulet never came to Paris until this time."
Francis was sitting a little outside of the circle we made around the "marquise," sipping something sweet, because champagne is bad for his nerves, and besides, it is not a chic enough drink for him. He rose solemnly, without putting down his glass, and, walking up to M. Noël, said to him, quietly: