“What! is that a negro, Bichette?”
“Do you mean to say that you can’t see it for yourself?”
“Yes, of course; but I’ll tell you—I thought he was talking German. ‘Soup served,’ he said.”
“Well, monsieur, is that German, I’d like to know? Still, when a person makes so much talk about having a negro, he ought to teach him to walk. Do you suppose I’d have a groom that acted as if he had lead in his breeches? A sweet creature, their Domingo! He’s some wretched savage who’s been soaked in licorice juice to make a negro of him.”
“Dinner is served, and Monsieur and Madame de la Thomassinière have not come!” said Madame Destival, snappishly.
“We are only waiting for them. They are terrible people—never on time! It’s after six.”
“Six ten,” said the tall man in spectacles. “I am always with the sun; hum! hum!”
“Six seven,” said Monin, consulting his watch.
“You are slow, monsieur; hum! hum!”
“My husband sets his watch every day by the cannon at the Palais-Royal,” said Madame Monin, with a disdainful glance at the spectacled man; while the little man with short arms stood thrice on his right leg and twice on his left, in his struggles to draw his watch from his fob; and, having finally succeeded in producing a silver time-piece, to which a gold chain was attached, he gazed a long time at the dial and said: