THE SUPPER-PARTY OF THE THREE CAVALIERS
“Be silent, all of you!” cried Mimi. “I want to talk a little now. Since the magnificent M. Marcel does not care for fables, I am going to relate a true story, et quorum pars magna fui.”
“Do you speak Latin?” asked Eugène.
“As you perceive,” Mlle. Pinson answered. “I have inherited that sentence from my uncle, who served under the great Napoleon, and who always repeated it before he gave us an account of a battle. If you don’t know the meaning of the words, I’ll teach you free of charge. They mean, ‘I give you my word of honor.’ Well, then, you are to know that one night last week I went with two of my friends, Blanchette and Rougette, to the Odéon theater——”
“Watch me cut the cake,” interrupted Marcel.
“Cut ahead, but listen,” Mlle. Pinson continued. “As I was saying, I went with Blanchette and Rougette to the Odéon to see a tragedy. Rougette, as you know, has just lost her grandmother, and has inherited four hundred francs. We had taken a box, opposite to which, in the pit, sat three students. These young men liked our looks, and, on the pretext that we were alone and unprotected, invited us to supper.”
“Immediately?” asked Marcel. “That was gallant indeed. And you refused, I suppose?”
“By no means,” said Mimi. “We accepted the invitation, and in the intermission, without waiting for the end of the play, we all went off to Viot’s restaurant.”
“With your cavaliers?”
“With our cavaliers. The leader, of course, began by telling us that he had nothing, but such little obstacles did not disconcert us. We ordered everything we wanted. Rougette took pen and paper, and ordered a veritable marriage-feast: shrimps, an omelet with sugar, fritters, mussels, eggs with whipped cream—in fact, all the delicacies imaginable. To tell the truth, our young gentlemen pulled wry faces—— ”