"No! nothing of the sort! Certainly, a lady might fall in love with me as well as with another. I am not a foe of the fair sex. Although there is always a reverse side to the medal, I will not say of women, with Suetonius, that we must _missam facere uxorem_!--That Suetonius was not a gallant man." "Answer what I ask you, instead of quoting your classics!" "It seems to me, Plumard, that with you I may venture to take a few strides into the domain of science. You are a clerk like myself; you must understand Latin. If you do not understand it, I grieve for you." "What an infernal chatterbox! he keeps branching off from his subject." "That proves that I have facility in elocution, elasticity in my ideas. There are many people who would like to branch off from their subject, and who cannot. They have to remain nailed fast to it, for lack of imagination to think up anything else;--_quid agis_? You wish to know why I treat you so handsomely this evening, do you not? Well, I propose to tell you: I won a dozen livres in a game of _brisque_ with a churl, and I propose to consume a part of it with you. Do you think that I do wrong?" "No, no! far from it; it is an excellent idea of yours!" "Ah! it is very lucky that you approve of my action." "Do you play at _brisque_?" "I play at all games at which I win; they are the only ones that amuse me.--But here comes the veal. Let us attend strictly to business. There are idiots who say: _Non ut edam vivo, sed ut vivam edo_. For my part, I am not ashamed to say that I live for nothing else except to eat; for if I did not eat, I should die. Why, then, should not one do with pleasure, with sensuous delight, a thing which we are bound to do every day?--Let us fall to!" Bahuchet, possessor of a stomach whose capacity was extraordinary, swallowed with surprising rapidity everything that the waiter placed between him and Plumard; he consumed, unaided, almost the entire contents of the dishes which he had ordered for two; so that his friend stopped him at last, saying: "It was hardly worth while to offer to treat me, if you propose to eat everything!" "_Quid rogas_, comrade? why do you eat so slowly? I concluded that you were not hungry, and I thought that it was useless to leave anything." "If I ate as fast as you, I should choke to death!" "Well, I will go slower now.--Besides, I want to talk with you; and when one is talking, one cannot eat; that is why I laid in a stock in advance.--Plumard, I am going to tell you something which will make you very happy." "Bah! is it that our solicitor is going to give us a crown more a month?" "Ouiche! I advise you to count on that! He is more likely to cut us down; he has already threatened to do it to me!--Come, think, think of something that might be of immense benefit to you." Plumard raised his great eyes to the beams which sustained the ceiling. "Have you met a rich woman who wishes to marry me?"