All the tables were full. I had nothing to do, no one to speak to, and I had just lost two thousand crowns to Monsieur de Laval. I flung myself on a sofa near the fireplace. Presently, if there was ever a man on earth most utterly astonished it was I, when, on looking up, I saw, seated on another sofa on the opposite side of the fireplace, Monsieur de Calonne, the comptroller-general. He seemed to be dozing, or else he was buried in one of those deep meditations which overtake statesmen. When I pointed out the famous minister to Beaumarchais, who happened to come near me at that moment, the father of Figaro explained the mystery of his presence in that house without uttering a word. He pointed first at my head, then at Bodard’s with a malicious gesture which consisted in turning to each of us two fingers of his hand while he kept the others doubled up. My first impulse was to rise and say something rousing to Calonne; then I paused, first, because I thought of a trick I could play the statesman, and secondly, because Beaumarchais caught me familiarly by the hand. “Why do you do that, monsieur?” I said. He winked at the comptroller. “Don’t wake him,” he said in a low voice. “A man is happy when asleep.” “Pray, is sleep a financial scheme?” I whispered. “Indeed, yes!” said Calonne, who had guessed our words from the mere motion of our lips. “Would to God we could sleep long, and then the awakening you are about to see would never happen.” “Monseigneur,” said the dramatist, “I must thank you--” “For what?” “Monsieur de Mirabeau has started for Berlin. I don’t know whether we might not both have drowned ourselves in that affair of ‘les Eaux.’” “You have too much memory, and too little gratitude,” replied the minister, annoyed at having one of his secrets divulged in my presence. “Possibly,” said Beaumarchais, cut to the quick; “but I have millions that can balance many a score.” Calonne pretended not to hear. It was long past midnight when the play ceased. Supper was announced. There were ten of us at table: Bodard and his wife, Calonne, Beaumarchais, the two strange men, two pretty women, whose names I will not give here, a _fermier-general_, Lavoisier, and myself. Out of thirty guests who were in the salon when I entered it, only these ten remained. The two _queer species_ did not consent to stay until they were urged to do so by Madame Bodard, who probably thought she was paying her obligations to the surgeon by giving him something to eat, and pleasing her husband (with whom she appeared, I don’t precisely know why, to be coquetting) by inviting the lawyer.