“I have not yet told you, my dear boy, where I mean to take you to-night,” he said, taking Victurnien’s hands and tapping on them. “You are going to see Mlle. des Touches; all the pretty women with any pretensions to wit will be at her house en petit comite. Literature, art, poetry, any sort of genius, in short, is held in great esteem there. It is one of our old-world bureaux d’esprit, with a veneer of monarchical doctrine, the livery of this present age.” “It is sometimes as tiresome and tedious there as a pair of new boots, but there are women with whom you cannot meet anywhere else,” said de Marsay. “If all the poets who went there to rub up their muse were like our friend here,” said Rastignac, tapping Blondet familiarly on the shoulder, “we should have some fun. But a plague of odes, and ballads, and driveling meditations, and novels with wide margins, pervades the sofas and the atmosphere.” “I don’t dislike them,” said de Marsay, “so long as they corrupt girls’ minds, and don’t spoil women.” “Gentlemen,” smiled Blondet, “you are encroaching on my field of literature.” “You need not talk. You have robbed us of the most charming woman in the world, you lucky rogue; we may be allowed to steal your less brilliant ideas,” cried Rastignac. “Yes, he is a lucky rascal,” said the Vidame, and he twitched Blondet’s ear. “But perhaps Victurnien here will be luckier still this evening----” “_Already_!” exclaimed de Marsay. “Why, he only came here a month ago; he has scarcely had time to shake the dust of his old manor house off his feet, to wipe off the brine in which his aunt kept him preserved; he has only just set up a decent horse, a tilbury in the latest style, a groom----” “No, no, not a groom,” interrupted Rastignac; “he has some sort of an agricultural laborer that he brought with him ‘from his place.’ Buisson, who understands a livery as well as most, declared that the man was physically incapable of wearing a jacket.” “I will tell you what, you ought to have modeled yourself on Beaudenord,” the Vidame said seriously. “He has this advantage over all of you, my young friends, he has a genuine specimen of the English tiger----” “Just see, gentlemen, what the noblesse have come to in France!” cried Victurnien. “For them the one important thing is to have a tiger, a thoroughbred, and baubles----”