Numberless persons ruin themselves by gambling, and tell you coolly they cannot live without gambling. What nonsense! Would it be allowed to say that one cannot live without stealing, murdering, or leading a riotous existence? Giton has a fresh complexion, and an aggressive expression. He is broad-shouldered and corpulent. He speaks with confidence. He blows his nose noisily, spits to a great distance, and sneezes loudly. He sleeps a great deal, and snores whenever he pleases. When he takes a walk with his equals he occupies the centre; when he stops, they stop; when he advances again, they do the same. No one ever interrupts him. He is jovial, impatient, haughty, irritable, independent. He believes himself witty and gifted. He is rich. Phédon has sunken eyes. He is thin, and his cheeks are hollow. He sleeps very little. He is a dreamer, and, although witty, looks stupid. He forgets to say what he knows, and when he does speak, speaks badly. He shares the opinion of others; he runs, he flies to oblige anyone; he is kind and flattering. He is superstitious, scrupulous, and bashful. He walks stealthily, speaks in a low voice, and takes no room. He can glide through the densest crowd without effort. He coughs, and blows his nose inside his hat, and waits to sneeze until he is alone. He is poor. _III.--On Men and Manners_ Paris is divided into a number of small societies which are like so many republics. They have their own customs, laws, language, and even their own jokes. One grows up, in towns, in a gross ignorance of all that concerns the country. City-bred men are unable to tell hemp from flax, and wheat from rye. We are satisfied as long as we can feed and dress. When we speak well of a man at court, we invariably do so for two reasons: firstly, in order that he may hear that we spoke well of him; secondly, in order that he may speak well of us in his turn. To be successful and to secure high offices there are two ways: the high-road, on which most people pass; and the cross-road, which is the shorter. The youth of a prince is the origin of many fortunes. Court is where joys are evident, but artificial; where sorrows are concealed, but real. A slave has one master; an ambitious man has as many as there are persons who may be useful to him in his career. With five or six art terms, people give themselves out as experts in music, painting, and architecture. The high opinions people have of the great and mighty is so blind, and their interest in their gestures, features, and manners so general, that if the mighty were only good, the devotion of the people to them would amount to worship. Lucile prefers to waste his life as the protégé of a few aristocrats than to live on familiar terms with his peers. It is advisable to say nothing of the mighty. If you speak well of them, it is flattery. It is dangerous to speak ill of them during their lifetime, and it is cowardly to do so after they are dead.