He placed one before him, sent his article off to the _Journal des Débats_ office, which lies near by, and, leaning back in his chair with thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, blew clouds of smoke at the gilded ceiling, and cried: “Let’s make a noise.” “What’s up now?” inquired Toto. “The Ministry will be down to-morrow!” cried Pelisson, flapping the sides of his chest with his turtle-fin hands. “You’ll hear the tumble of portfolios—flip, flap, flop; and I’ve helped to pull them, ehu! Let us make a noise; it’s the only thing worth living for. I’d die in a world where I couldn’t make a noise; you couldn’t make me a worse hell than a padded room. You, Toto—how do you live without making a noise? Gaillard squeaks in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Struve grumbles in the _Temps_, I roar in the _Débats_; you, wretched child! are silent: take up a pen or a paint-brush and make a noise.” “I would if I could,” mourned Toto. “You mean you could if you would!” retorted Pelisson. “Write a little book of poems, and I’ll abuse them; I’ll make your name rattle like a pea in a bottle. Write an ode to the Pope or paint a modest picture—there’s two ideas for you gratis, each a fortune. Give me some coffee.” “I wouldn’t give a pin for fame unless I earned it,” said Toto, handing the coffee. “I’d just as soon swing a rattle as have a work of art of mine”—Struve groaned—“made famous by my friends or my position.” “Why,” cried Pelisson, “he’s talking sense, this boy is!” “He’s talking nonsense,” said Struve. “He’s talking divinity—I mean (hic) divinely,” said Gaillard, who was finishing his second bottle of champagne, and writing poetry on his cuffs with the stylographic pen that had just helped in the destruction of a Ministry. De Nani was dumbly digesting; he had filled his pockets with cigars, and was wishing he had brought a sack. He was also drunk—in fact, to put it plainly, very drunk. “I’m talking _sense_,” cried Toto with flashing eyes. “_He_ can’t paint,” suddenly broke out De Nani, the drunkenness lifting like a veil and disclosing his true thoughts. “He’s only pretending. Doesn’t want to paint—’sgot four mistresses.” He slipped away from his chair as if sucked down by a whirlpool. A roar of laughter went up that shook the ceiling, and then, to everyone’s horror, Toto the debonair, the hero of cock-fights and what not, broke into tears. At this extraordinary sight Gaillard first gazed with a grin, and then burst out like a firework touched off, wringing his hands and calling upon God. “Devil take that old scoundrel!” cried Pelisson, kicking at the body of De Nani, which seemed quite flaccid now that the truth had got out of it. “Where did you pick him up?—he’s a scamp, he’s a scamp!” “Toto, my dear Toto,” lisped Struve, “paint a picture to-morrow, and I’ll make it famouth for you. So help me God! I will, or my name’s not Struve.”