"It's my opinion, God forgive me! the man means to feed us with scraps from the pig-trough," says another.
"It's a regular do, this soirée," says a third.
"The tea is disgustingly smoked," says a fourth.
"And all the little cakes look as if they had been fingered before," says the fifth.
"Decidedly they wish to poison us," says the big man in the neckcloth, looking very morose.
M. Lupot is in despair. He goes in search of Nannette, who has hidden herself in the kitchen; and he busies himself in gathering up the fragments of the bread and butter from the floor and the fireplace.
Madame Lupot says nothing; but she is in very bad humour, for she has put on a new cap, which she felt sure would be greatly admired; and a lady has come to her and said—
"Ah, madame, what a shocking head-dress!—your cap is very old-fashioned—those shapes are quite gone out."
"And yet, madame," replies Madame Lupot, "I bought it, not two days ago, in the Rue St Martin."
"Well, madame—Is that the street you go to for the fashions? Go to Mademoiselle Alexina Larose Carrefous Gaillon—you'll get delicious caps there—new fashions and every thing so tasteful: for Heaven's sake, madame, never put on that cap again. You look, at least, a hundred."