“The assistant apologized and withdrew. La Palferine, seeing the young man on the landing, rose in the attire celebrated in verse in _Britannicus_ to add, ‘Remark the stairs! Pay particular attention to the stairs; do not forget to tell him about the stairs!’ “In every position into which chance has thrown La Palferine, he has never failed to rise to the occasion. All that he does is witty and never in bad taste; always and in everything he displays the genius of Rivarol, the polished subtlety of the old French noble. It was he who told that delicious anecdote of a friend of Laffitte the banker. A national fund had been started to give back to Laffitte the mansion in which the Revolution of 1830 was brewed, and this friend appeared at the offices of the fund with, ‘Here are five francs, give me a hundred sous change!’--A caricature was made of it.--It was once La Palferine’s misfortune, in judicial style, to make a young girl a mother. The girl, not a very simple innocent, confessed all to her mother, a respectable matron, who hurried forthwith to La Palferine and asked what he meant to do. “‘Why, madame,’ said he, ‘I am neither a surgeon nor a midwife.’ “She collapsed, but three or four years later she returned to the charge, still persisting in her inquiry, ‘What did La Palferine mean to do?’ “‘Well, madame,’ returned he, ‘when the child is seven years old, an age at which a boy ought to pass out of women’s hands’--an indication of entire agreement on the mother’s part--‘if the child is really mine’--another gesture of assent--‘if there is a striking likeness, if he bids fair to be a gentleman, if I can recognize in him my turn of mind, and more particularly the Rusticoli air; then, oh--ah!’--a new movement from the matron--‘on my word and honor, I will make him a cornet of--sugar-plums!’