_To these, from the inn, L.U.E., DUMONT, CHARLES, the CURATE, the NOTARY jigging; from the inn, R.U.E., FIDDLERS playing and dancing; and through door, L.C., GORIOT, ERNESTINE, PEASANTS, dancing likewise. Air: "Haste to the Wedding." As the parties meet, the music ceases_ DUMONT. Welcome, neighbours! welcome, friends! Ernestine, here is my Charles, no longer mine. A thousand welcomes. O, the gay day! O, the auspicious wedding! (_CHARLES, ERNESTINE, DUMONT, GORIOT, CURATE, and NOTARY sit to the wedding feast; PEASANTS, FIDDLERS, and MAIDS, grouped at back drinking from the barrel._) O, I must have all happy around me. GORIOT. Then help the soup. DUMONT. Give me leave: I must have all happy. Shall these poor gentlemen upon a day like this drink ordinary wine? Not so; I shall drink it. (_To MACAIRE, who is just about to fill his glass._) Don't touch it, sir! Aline, give me that gentleman's bottle and take him mine: with old Dumont's compliments. MACAIRE. What? BERTRAND. Change the bottle? MACAIRE. Bitten! \ > _Aside._ BERTRAND. Sold again! / DUMONT. Yes, all shall be happy. GORIOT. I tell 'ee, help the soup! DUMONT (_begins to help soup. Then, dropping ladle_). One word: a matter of detail; Charles is not my son. (_All exclaim._) O no, he is not my son. Perhaps I should have mentioned it before. CHARLES. I am not your son, sir? DUMONT. O no, far from it. GORIOT. Then who the devil's son be he? DUMONT. O, I don't know. It's an odd tale, a romantic tale: it may amuse you. It was twenty years ago, when I kept the "Golden Head" at Lyons; Charles was left upon my doorstep in a covered basket, with sufficient money to support the child till he should come of age. There was no mark upon the linen, nor any clue but one: an unsigned letter from the father of the child, which he strictly charged me to preserve. It was to prove his identity; he, of course, would know the contents, and he only; so I keep it safe in the third compartment of my cash-box, with the ten thousand francs I've saved for his dowry. Here is the key; it's a patent key. To-day the poor boy is twenty-one, to-morrow to be married. I did perhaps hope the father would appear; there was a Marquis coming; he wrote me for a room; I gave him the best, Number Thirteen, which you have all heard of; I did hope it might be he, for a Marquis, you know, is always genteel. But no, you see. As for me, I take all to witness I'm as innocent of him as the babe unborn. MACAIRE. Ahem! I think you said the linen bore an M? DUMONT. Pardon me; the markings were cut off. MACAIRE. True. The basket white, I think? DUMONT. Brown, brown. MACAIRE. Ah! brown--a whitey-brown. GORIOT. I tell 'ee what, Dumont, this is all very well; but in that case, I'll be danged if he gets my daater. (_General consternation._) DUMONT. O Goriot, let's have happy faces!