"None of that, Lemois," laughed Louis, abreast of the fireplace now, his fingers outspread to the blaze. "Too many wooden heads talking around here as it is. I don't, of course, object to Herbert's wobbling around in its upholstered magnificence, but he can't play doge and monopolize everything. Shove your high-backed pulpit with its grinning cherubs to one side, I tell you, Herbert, and let me warm up"--and off came the cloak and goggles, his broad shoulders and massive arms coming into view. Then tossing them to Mignon, he turned to me. "There's one thing you're good for, High-Muck-a-Muck, if nothing else, and that is to keep a fire going. If I wanted to find you, and there was a chimney within a mile, I'd be sure you were sitting in front of the hearth with the tongs in your hand"--here he kicked a big log into place bringing to life a swarm of sparks that blazed out a welcome and then went laughing up the chimney. "By thunder!--isn't this glorious! Crowd up, all of you--this is the best yet! Lemois, won't you please shove just a plain, little chair this way for me? No--come to think of it, I'll take half of Herbert's royal throne," and he squeezed in beside the sculptor, one leg dangling over the arm of the Florentine. Herbert packed himself the closer and the talk ran on: the races at Cabourg and Trouville; the big flight of wild geese which had come a month earlier than usual, and last, the season which had just closed with the rush of fashion and folly, in which chatter Lemois had joined. "And the same old crowd, of course, Lemois?" suggested Herbert; "and always doing the same things--coffee at nine, breakfast at twelve, tea at five, dinner at eight, and bridge till midnight! Extraordinary, isn't it! I'd rather pound oakum in a country jail." "Some of them will," remarked Louis with a ruminating smile. "And it was a good season, you say, Lemois?" he continued; "lots of people shedding shekels and lots of tips for dear old Leà? That's the best part of it. And did they really order good things--the beggars?--or had you cleaned them out of their last franc on their first visit? Come now--how many Pêche-Flambées, for instance, have you served, Lemois, to the mob since July--and how many demoiselles de Cherbourg--those lovely little girl lobsters without claws?" "Do you mean the on-shore species--those you find in the hotels at Trouville?" returned Lemois, rubbing his hands together, his thoughtful face alight with humor. "We have two varieties, you know, Monsieur Louis--the on-shore--the Trouville kind who always bring their claws with them--you can feel them under their kid gloves." "Oh, let up!--let up!" retorted Louis. "I mean the kind we devour; not the kind who devour us." "Same thing," remarked Herbert in his low, even tones from the depths of the chair, as he stretched a benumbed hand toward the fire. "It generally ends in a broil, whether it's a woman or a lobster."