Well, finding no peace at home, he sought it elsewhere, as was very natural for him to do; and at length discovered a place of rest far beyond the cares and clamors of domestic life. This was a little _café estaminet_ a short way out of the city, whither he repaired every evening to smoke his pipe, drink sugar-water, and play his favorite game of domino. There he met the boon companions he most loved; heard all the floating chit-chat of the day; laughed when he was in a merry mood; found consolation when he was sad; and at all times gave vent to his opinions without fear of being snubbed short by a flat contradiction. Now, the notary's bosom friend was a dealer in claret and cognac, who lived about a league from the city, and always passed his evenings at the _estaminet_. He was a gross, corpulent fellow, raised from a full-blooded Gascon breed, and sired by a comic actor of some reputation in his way. He was remarkable for nothing but his good-humor, his love of cards, and a strong propensity to test the quality of his own liquors by comparing them with those sold at other places. As evil communications corrupt good manners, the bad practices of the wine-dealer won insensibly upon the worthy notary; and before he was aware of it, he found himself weaned from domino and sugar-water, and addicted to piquet and spiced wine. Indeed, it not infrequently happened that, after a long session at the _estaminet_, the two friends grew so urbane that they would waste a full half-hour at the door in friendly dispute which should conduct the other home. Though this course of life agreed well enough with the sluggish, phlegmatic temperament of the wine-dealer, it soon began to play the very deuce with the more sensitive organization of the notary, and finally put his nervous system completely out of tune. He lost his appetite, became gaunt and haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions of blue-devils haunted him by day, and by night strange faces peeped through his bed-curtains and the nightmare snorted in his ear. The worse he grew the more he smoked and tippled; and the more he smoked and tippled, why, as a matter of course, the worse he grew. His wife alternately stormed, remonstrated, entreated; but all in vain. She made the house too hot for him--he retreated to the tavern; she broke his long-stemmed pipes upon the andirons--he substituted a short-stemmed one, which, for safe-keeping, he carried in his waistcoat pocket.