Usually the forlorn demesne was supervised by a mangy waiter brooding over mangy tables and by a mangier cat who kept a furtive eye on the placarded list of each day's plat du jour and wondered when her turn would come for Thursday's Sauté de lapin. But tables, cat and waiter cast manginess aside when we(the pride of that day still remains and makes me italicise the word) came down to play at the wedding of Adolphe Querlat and Léontine Bringuet.
"Tiens! where is Père Paragot?" asked fat Madame Bringuet—perspiring in unaccustomed corset and black bombazine.
"Alas! he is no longer, Madame," explained Blanquette. "He had a seizure yesterday. He fell off his chair, and we picked him up stone dead."
"Tiens, tiens, but it is sad."
"But no. It does not matter. This gentleman will make you dance much better than Père Paragot," and she whispered encomiums into Madame's ear.
"Enchanted, Monsieur. And your name?"
My master swept a courtly bow with his feathered hat—no one ever bowed so magnificently as he.
"Berzélius Nibbidard Paragot, cadet, at your service."
"You must be hungry, Monsieur Paragot—and Mademoiselle and this little monsieur," said Madame Bringuet hospitably. "We are at table in the salle à manger. You will join us."
We entered the long narrow room and sat down to the banquet. Heavens! what a feast! There were omelettes and geese and eels and duck and tripe and onion soup and sausages and succulences inconceivable. Accustomed to the Spartan fare of vagabondage I plunged into the dishes head foremost like a hungry puppy. Should I eat such a meal as that to-day it would be my death. Hey for the light heart and elastic stomach of youth! Some fifty persons, the ban and arrière ban of the relations of the young couple, guzzled in a wedged and weltering mass. Wizened grandfathers and stolid large-eyed children ate and panted in the suffocating heat, and gorged again. Not till half way through the repast did tongues begin to wag freely. At last the tisane of champagne—syrupy paradise to my uncultivated palate—was handed round and the toasts were drunk. The bride's garter was secured amid boisterous shouts and innuendos, and then we left the stifling room and entered the garden, the elders to smoke and drink and gossip at the little tables beneath the verandah, the younger folk to dance on the uneven gravel. Young as I was, I felt grateful that no physical exercise was required of me for some hours to come. Even Narcisse and the cat (which followed him) waddled heavily to the verandah where we were to play.