“What does that prove? That all authors belong to a coterie; that they allow themselves to be inveigled by the prayers of this one and the enticements of that one, or by the advice of the manager, who has his reasons for looking after still another one. O the stage! O you authors! it’s shocking, the injustice we have to put up with; and then they throw a flower girl in our faces! and tell us that she has only to appear to leave us behind! In that case, we’re only stop-gaps, eh?--Oh! it’s an outrage! it’s abominable! O God! my nerves! I am suffocating! I am dying!” And Mademoiselle Zizi threw herself back on the divan, stretching out her legs and arms, gnashing her teeth, and wriggling like one possessed; whereupon Beau Saint-Arthur quickly seized a carafe, exclaiming in a tone of deep distress: “The deuce! now she’s going to have a nervous attack; that’s very pleasant. The devil take you, Jéricourt, you’re the cause of it all; you spoke so roughly to her! Look, see how rigid she is!” “That will pass away!” replied Jéricourt very calmly, helping himself to some truffled calves’ brains. _“Canaille!”_ muttered Mademoiselle Zizi, still rigid. And Alfred, as he approached his charmer with a glass of cold water, was repulsed by her so sharply that a part of the contents of the glass splashed in his face, while the young woman muttered, taking pains to grind her teeth together: “I want my blue phial with the opal stopper; I must have it.” “Where is it, dear love? Shall I feel in your pocket?” “Don’t come near me. My phial is at my rooms, on my dressing table in the boudoir.” “Very good--I’ll send a waiter.” “No, monsieur, I insist on your going yourself; the waiter would make some mistake.” “But you haven’t two blue phials, and----” “I insist on your going yourself, or else I won’t try to live.” These last words were accompanied by such violent gnashing of the teeth, that the affectionate Alfred, fearing that his mistress would dislocate her jaw, hastened to take his hat, saying to Jéricourt: “I must humor her; you see what a paroxysm she is having, and her blue phial contains some salt, I don’t know what--some mixture that brings her round at once. So that she often sends me to get it, for she never remembers to take it with her. I will run to her house; luckily it isn’t far--Rue Basse. But for all that it isn’t amusing.--Don’t leave her, Jéricourt, above all things; do what you can for her.” “Never fear.” The dandified Saint-Arthur, leaving Bonvalet’s, almost ran to Rue Basse-du-Temple, and on reaching his mistress’s abode, was received by her maid, who also was dining, and who had hurriedly locked the dining-room door, taking the precaution to remove the key; she ushered the young lion into the salon, saying: “Come in here, monsieur, and wait; I’ll go and fetch madame’s phial.” “I could have waited in the reception room just as well; I’m in a hurry.”