"Good-bye, my friends, good-bye, only for the present; I shall never forget you!" The deputy, who was also very effusive, had invited his principal supporters to come and see him in Paris as there were plenty of excursion trains. They all took him at his word, and Rulhiere was obliged to invite them all to dinner. In order to avoid any possible mishaps, he gave his wife a foretaste of their guests. He told her that they were rather noisy, talkative, and unpolished, and that they would, no doubt, astonish her by their manners and their accent, but that, as they had great influence, and were excellent men, they deserved a good reception. It was a very useful precaution, for when they came into the drawing-room in their new clothes, expanding with pleasure, and with their hair pomatumed as if they had been going to a country wedding, they felt inclined to fall down before the new Madame Rulhiere to whom the deputy introduced them, and who seemed to be perfectly at home there. At first they were embarrassed, felt uncomfortable and out of place, did not know what to say, and had to seek their words; they buttoned and unbuttoned their gloves, answered her questions at random, and racked their brains to discover the solution of the enigma. Captain Mouredus looked at the fire, with the fixed gaze of a somnambulist, Marius Barbaste scratched his fingers mechanically, while the three others, the factory manager, Casemajel, Roquetton, the lawyer, and Dustugue, the hotel proprietor, looked at Rulhiere anxiously. The lawyer was the first to recover himself. He got up from his arm chair laughing heartily, dug the deputy in the ribs with his elbow, and said: "I understand it all, I understand it; you thought that people do not come to Paris to be bored, eh? Madame is delightful, and I congratulate you, Monsieur." He gave a wink, and made signs behind his back to his friends, and then the captain had his turn. "We are not boobies, and that fellow Roquetton is the most knowing of the lot of us.... Ah! Monsieur Rulhiere, without any exaggeration, you are the cream of good fellows." And with a flushed face, and expanding his chest, he said sonorously: "They certainly turn them out very pretty in your part of the country, my little lady!" Madame Rulhiere, who did not know what to say, had gone up to her husband for protection; but she felt much inclined to go to her own room under some pretext or other, in order to escape from her intolerable task. She kept her ground, however, during the whole of dinner, which was a noisy, jovial meal, during which the five electors, with their elbows on the table, and their waistcoats unbuttoned, and half drunk, told coarse stories, and swore like troopers. But as the coffee and the liquors were served in the smoking room, she took leave of her guests in an impatient voice, and went to her own room with the hasty step of an escaped prisoner, who is afraid of being retaken.