“With a man who is selling him the incarceration of an unseizable debtor,” replied a handsome woman who now appeared in a charming morning toilet.
“In that case, my dear Suzanne,” said Bixiou, “I am certain we may go in.”
“Oh! what a beautiful creature!” said Gazonal.
“That is Madame Gaillard,” replied Leon de Lora, speaking low into his cousin’s ear. “She is the most humble-minded woman in Paris, for she had the public and has contented herself with a husband.”
“What is your will, messeigneurs?” said the facetious editor, seeing his two friends and imitating Frederic Lemaitre.
Theodore Gaillard, formerly a wit, had ended by becoming a stupid man in consequence of remaining constantly in one centre,—a moral phenomenon frequently to be observed in Paris. His principal method of conversation consisted in sowing his speeches with sayings taken from plays then in vogue and pronounced in imitation of well-known actors.
“We have come to blague,” said Leon.
“‘Again, young men’” (Odry in the Saltimbauques).
“Well, this time, we’ve got him, sure,” said Gaillard’s other visitor, apparently by way of conclusion.
“Are you sure of it, pere Fromenteau?” asked Gaillard. “This it the eleventh time you’ve caught him at night and missed him in the morning.”