Lastly, to fill the gaps between the figures we have sketched, Turks of every variety! Tunisians, Moors, Egyptians, Levantines; and, mingled with that exotic element, a whole multicolored Parisian Bohemia of decayed gentlemen, squinting tradesmen, penniless journalists, inventors of strange objects, men from the South landed in Paris without a sou--all the tempest-tossed vessels to be revictualled, all the flocks of birds whirling about in the darkness, that were attracted by that great fortune as by the light of a lighthouse. The Nabob received that motley crew at his table through kindness of heart, generosity, weakness, and entire lack of dignity, combined with absolute ignorance, and partly as a result of the same exile's melancholy, the same need of expansion that led him to receive, in his magnificent palace on the Bardo in Tunis, everybody who landed from France, from the petty tradesman and exporter of small wares, to the famous pianist on a tour and the consul-general. Listening to those different voices, those foreign accents, incisive or stammering, glancing at those varying types of countenance, some uncivilized, passionate, unrefined, others over-civilized, faded, of the type that haunts the boulevards, over-ripe as it were, and observing the same varieties in the corps of servants, where "flunkeys," taken the day before from some office, insolent fellows, with the heads of dentists or bath-attendants, bustled about among the motionless Ethiopians, who shone like black marble torch-holders,--it was impossible to say exactly where you were; at all events, you would never have believed that you were on Place Vendome, at the very heart and centre of the life of our modern Paris. On the table there was a similar outlandish collection of foreign dishes, sauces with saffron or anchovies, elaborately spiced Turkish delicacies, chickens with fried almonds; all this, taken in conjunction with the commonplace decorations of the room, the gilded wainscotings and the shrill jangle of the new bells, gave one the impression of a table-d'hote in some great hotel in Smyrna or Calcutta, or of the gorgeous saloon of a trans-Atlantic liner, the _Pereire_ or the _Sinai_. It would seem that such a variety of guests--I had almost said of passengers--would make the repast animated and noisy. Far from it. They all ate nervously, in silence, watching one another out of the corner of the eye; and even the most worldly, those who seemed most at ease, had in their eyes the wandering, distressed expression indicating a persistent thought, a feverish anxiety which caused them to speak without answering, to listen without understanding a word of what was said. Suddenly the door of the dining-room was thrown open. "Ah! there's Jenkins," exclaimed the Nabob, joyfully. "Hail, doctor, hail! How are you, my boy?"