"Charles Fourier says," said Adolphe, moving on to the modern, "Where is the old man who does not desire not to be certain of carrying into another life the experience he has acquired in this one? To assert that this desire can never be realised is to admit that the Deity would deceive us. We must then recognise that we have lived already, before being what we are to-day, and that many more lives await us. All these lives--Fourier adds with a precision for which we cannot be sufficiently thankful--to the number of a hundred and ten are distributed over five stages of unequal extent and cover a period of eighty-one thousand years." "Eighty-one thousand years! That's pretty filling!" interrupted M. Lopard. "We spend twenty-seven thousand of them on our planet and the other fifty-four thousand elsewhere," explained Adolphe. "And how long is it before we come back into another body?" asked Madame Bache. "At least two or three thousand years, if we are to believe Allan Kardec, always supposing that we have not died a violent death. Then, especially if one has been executed, one may be reincarnated at the end of two hundred years," said Adolphe. "That's it! They must have hanged me," said Theophrastus to himself. "Or if they didn't hang a man of my quality, they beheaded me. All the same," he went on to think, with a natural pride, "if these people here knew that they were sitting with a favourite of the Regent, or perhaps a Prince of Royal blood, how astonished and respectful they'd be! But not a bit of it: they are merely saying to themselves, 'It's Theophrastus Longuet, manufacturer of rubber stamps'; and that's enough for them." The advent of the two waiters with the champagne cut short the dissertation of Adolphe; and though everyone had been deeply impressed by it, now they only wished to be amused. It was then that Marceline turned to Theophrastus and begged him to sing the song with which he was wont to delight their ears at dessert on each anniversary of their wedding-day. He had sung it on their wedding-day itself; and thanks to its charm and freshness, it had been a great success. It was Beranger's _Lisette_. But what was the amazement of Marceline and all the guests, when Theophrastus sprang to his feet, threw his napkin on the table, and bawled to the mistress of the house: "As you will, _Marie-Antoinette_! I can refuse you nothing!" "Gracious goodness! _That voice of his has come back!_" gasped Marceline. The guests had not recovered from the shock when Theophrastus bawled to an old French air, in a voice which none of them recognised as his, his voice of the Conciergerie, bawled to the most select society from Crécy-en-Brie to Lagny-Thorigny-Pomponne: "Bullies all! In our snug cribs We live like fighting-cocks: On dainties rich we splash the dibbs, And booze we never docks. Then guzzle, cullies, and booze away Till Gabriel's trump on Judgment Day!"