"After all, I shall have no difficulty in finding them again. The uncle doesn't seem quite so amiable as the nephew; there's a something stiff and cold in his face. He fell in here like a bombshell. It's a pity; I felt just in the mood to kidnap the bride before the noses of the Athenians and of all those hussies who hid their faces with their handkerchiefs. Suppose I go and clean out the whole crowd? No, they're not worth the trouble. I prefer to pay a visit to the Blanquette festivity; there I am known, they won't treat me as an intruder. Sapristi! what a pity that I hadn't the time to borrow a few napoleons from my new friend. He would have loaned them to me; there's no doubt about it. Ah! I waited too long; but I couldn't suspect that an uncle would arrive all of a sudden--just as they do in vaudevilles, to bring about an unexpected denouement. Aha! what do I hear? Music, they're playing a quadrille. Gad! it seems to me that I could make a pretty figure at a little contra-dance. That music puts me right in the mood for it. O power of music! _Emollit mores nec sint esse feros._ I think I'll go and say that to the bucks who are dancing upstairs! They'd think I was asking them for a cigar.--Pretty music! Sapristi! it shall not be said that I remained alone in this room, like a bear in its cage, while everybody else in the place is enjoying himself. Here goes for a look in at the Blanquette function." And Cherami jumped to his feet, put his hat on his head, took his little cane, and rushed from the room. When he was in the corridor, he lurched against the wall more than once; but, with the instinct of a man accustomed to frequent over-indulgence, he drew himself up and steadied himself on his legs. "What does this mean?" he said.--"You stumble for a glass or two of punch? Come, come, Arthur, I shouldn't know you, my boy; you're not drunk, you can't be drunk." Thereupon the mind steadied the body, and he walked to the stairway with a somewhat less uncertain step. There he could plainly hear the orchestra of the elegant Monleard ball. He paused a moment, saying to himself: "Suppose I should enter abruptly, and make a scene with the perfidious Fanny, in behalf of my young friend Gustave--what a stunning coup! what an effect I would produce!--Yes, but those people don't know me; they don't know that I once had thirty-five thousand francs a year, and that I have been the most popular man in Paris. They would be quite capable of treating me as an intruder! I should talk back--and then, duels! Let's not end in sadness a day so well employed. _Dies fasti_, as the Romans used to say. It's surprising how the punch brings back my Latin! Let's go up a floor, and join the Blanquette wedding party; there, at all events, I know the bridegroom slightly, and the uncle very well. I owe him four or five hundred francs for cloth--an additional reason why he should receive me well; a man never closes his door to his debtors."