Jasmin took the jar which the ugly knave handed him. “We don’t need preserves,” he muttered. “Mademoiselle Turlurette makes very good ones, and it wasn’t worth while----” A glance from Chérubin imposed silence on the old retainer, who walked, still grumbling, to the secretary and took out the money, while Poterne said to the young man: “I shall soon have something very interesting to offer to monsieur le marquis. It’s a monkey of the large species, extremely bright and intelligent, whose owner would not dispose of him except that he has failed in business. I mean to seize the opportunity, and you will have a monkey worthy of a king.” “A monkey!” cried Jasmin; “that would be the bouquet! Our house would be a complete menagerie then!” “Hush, Jasmin,” said Chérubin; “and do you, Monsieur Poterne, bring me the monkey as soon as you obtain it. I am very anxious to own it.” Monsieur Poterne bowed, took the fifty francs which the old servant, with a horrible grimace, counted out to him, and left the room, repeating that he would try to get the monkey at a reasonable figure. Chérubin, who had an appointment with Daréna and several other young men to breakfast at the Café de Paris, hastily completed his toilet and dismissed his old servant, who was in despair at the idea of having a monkey. He left the room, after casting an angry glance at the jar for which his master had just paid fifty francs. A few minutes later, Chérubin, attended by a genuine groom, entered his tilbury and drove away, paying no heed to Jasmin, who shouted to him from a window in the pantry: “He’s taken us in, monsieur! It’s grape jelly and nothing else!” XVI MONSIEUR POTERNE CONTINUES HIS LITTLE TRICKS At the Café de Paris, Chérubin found Daréna and two young dandies whose acquaintance he had made in the foyer of the Opéra. Intimacies are quickly formed at eighteen years; we proffer and give our friendship as if it were the most commonplace thing in the world. As we grow older, we often discover that we gave nothing and received nothing. Chérubin’s two new friends were only a few years older than he. One of them, whose name was Benoît Mousseraud, called himself _de_ Mousseraud, and never mentioned his Christian name, which he considered vulgar. The other, on the contrary, whose name was Oscar Chiponard, used his Christian name only, and never mentioned his family name. The former was a tall, slender young man of twenty-two, not ill-looking, although his eyes lacked expression and his hair, which he declared to be blond, bordered closely on the red; he was a brainless chatterbox, who boasted of making a conquest of every woman he saw, and of being the best dressed man in Paris.