“Yes, Watty; yes, certainly, my boy,” he said. “Is that the fiery chariot?” Beau Brummell George Bryan Brummell, Esq., his Britannic Majesty’s Consul in the Norman city of Caen, was about to entertain. He had given instructions to his attendant that great company was expected, together with a list of the distinguished names to be announced; and by eight o’clock his room in the Hôtel d’Angleterre was prepared, the tables for whist were set out and the _bougies_ lighted. Staring, half hypnotised, into the radiance of one of these placed on the mantelpiece, the Beau’s eyes blinked, and the Beau himself faced about with a puzzled look and a suspicious sniff. “What is that smell, Loustalot?” He spoke to the attendant, who in his little black _jaquette_ and blue apron looked very much like what, in fact, he was--a waiter at the hotel. The expression on this man’s face scintillated between gravity and mockery; the tone of his voice hovered between audacity and deference. “It will doubtless be the soot in the chimney, Monsieur,” he said coolly. “H’m! You are sure it is not a candle in need of snuffing?” “The best wax, Monsieur? Monsieur speaks as if he burnt filthy tallow. Monsieur’s nostrils are more sensitive than discriminating. _A, là!_ What it is to be bred to this imperishable refinement!” He was busy while he spoke in snuffing the wick, and in privately depositing the reeking instrument on the hob. “I go to announce the company, Monsieur,” he said. “In the meantime, if I were Monsieur, I would not spit too much on the carpet.” “An insolent rascal!” muttered the Beau to himself as the man disappeared. “I shall have to discharge him.” He had, however, so completely forgotten his resolve the next minute, that when Loustalot, returning, thrust his head round the door, he could not for the moment recall who he was. “O! by the by, Monsieur,” said the man, “Monsieur Magdelaine, the confectioner, desires to know if you will settle with him your little account for Maraschino and Biscuits de Rheims.” The Beau smiled, waving his hand. “To be sure--when it is full moon. Tell him so, my friend.” “Will not Monsieur tell him himself? His smile is such a surety, and I cannot reproduce it.” Brummell burst into a scream of rage. “You dare to mock me! Leave the room, you scoundrel!” The man grinned and disappeared. The spurt of fury ran to instant waste. Brummell set to pacing the room, eyeing successively the walls, the shining mantelpiece, his own shoes--all with an expression of the most complacent satisfaction. The last, indeed, as he saw them, evoked a positive sigh of transport. “That Vernis de Guiton!” he murmured: “positively a Corinthian polish! But it’s devilish expensive--devilish.” He strutted again, sticking out his chest and quavering a little stanza of his own, which someone at some time had set to music: