"Oh! I'll just put on my nut-brown coat, that's all.--Be sure that the fish is kept where it's cool, Marianne." "Marianne, do fetch my dress." Monsieur Chambertin hurried away to seek other guests, urging Monsieur and Madame Bidault not to be late. Poor Marianne, harried on every side, did not know which way to turn: she carried the straw hat to the cellar, and ran to her mistress with the platter of fish in her hand. At last, after twenty minutes of running hither and thither, the husband and wife were in condition to appear before the illustrious stranger. Monsieur Bidault, who had taken to writing poetry since he gave up his office, looked forward with pleasure to a discussion of the poetic art with the man of letters; and Madame Bidault, who prided herself upon having more style than anyone else in the neighborhood, was enchanted to exhibit her _savoir vivre_ before a grand seigneur. On leaving the Bidaults, Monsieur Chambertin went to the mayor's; but the mayor was in the fields overlooking his laborers, and would not return till evening. Then he hurried to the notary, Bidault's successor; but the notary was hunting, and his wife was in the midst of making preserves, which she could not leave. But the time was getting short, so Chambertin had recourse to an ex-apothecary of Lyon, who had retired from business and bought a pleasant little house at Allevard. He was not a very distinguished individual to place before a palatine; but as there was no time to choose, he had to be content with what he could get; besides, Monsieur Fondant talked very little, so he was not likely to say foolish things. So Chambertin burst in upon him, and, having no time to explain himself at length, said hurriedly: "My dear Fondant, I have a noble palatine, from Poland, at my house; he's going to dine with me; I want you, come! and a man of letters, who's a Hellenist incognito. Make haste! they are distinguished men of the first rank; we dine in half an hour." And he was gone. He thought that he might perhaps get his friend Frossard, the ironmaster, one of the richest landholders of the neighborhood. He hurried to his house and found him in the act of dining; he had already eaten his soup and beef, when Chambertin entered the dining-room, bathed in perspiration, and called to him from the doorway: "Stop, Frossard, stop! not another mouthful!" "What does this mean?" rejoined the ironmaster, holding his long knife in the air over a fat chicken he was preparing to carve; "not another mouthful! I fully expect to have a word to say to the thighs and wings; I won't leave anything but the carcass." "Stop, I tell you, my friend! you must come to dine with me." "Not to-day; it's too late, as you see." "You must." "I have eaten a third of my dinner already." "That won't make any difference." "I am very much afraid it will." "I have two noblemen to dine with me, one a literary man." "What do I care?" "From Poland--Cracow--a baron--a scholar!"