"We will not quarrel," said my neighbor, lightly, with reference to the popular superstition.
"Rather propitiate the offended deities by a crumb tossed over the shoulder," added I.
"Over the left?" asked the Baron, to intimate his knowledge of another idiom, together with a reproof for my gaucherie.
"À gauche,—quelquefois c'est justement à droit," I replied.
"Salt in any pottage," said Madame, a little uneasily, "is like surprise in an individual; it brings out the flavor of every ingredient, so my cook tells me."
"It is a preventive of palsy," I remarked, as the slight trembling of my adversary's finger caught my eye.
"And I have noticed that a taste for it is peculiar to those who trace their blood to Galitzin," continued Madame.
"Let us, therefore, elect a deputation to those mines near Cracow," said
Delphine.
"To our cousins, the slaves there?" laughed her mother.
"I must vote to lay your bill on the table, Mademoiselle," I rejoined.