“I must order in the tea,” thought the ex-stationer—­“it will perhaps put them into good-humour.”

And M. Lupot rushes off to give instructions to the maid; and that old individual, who has never seen such a company before, does not know how to get on, and breaks cups and saucers without mercy, in the effort to make haste.

“Nannette, have you got ready the other things you were to bring in with the tea?—­the muffins—­the cakes?”

“Yes, sir”—­replied Nannette—­“all is ready—­every thing will be in in a moment.”

“But there is another thing I told you, Nannette—­the sandwiches.”

“The witches, sir?—­the sand?”—­enquired the puzzled Nannette.

“It is an English dish—­I explained it to you before—­slices of bread and butter, with ham between.”

“Oh la, sir!” exclaimed the maid—­“I have forgotten that ragout—­oh dear!”

“Well—­make haste, Nannette; get ready some immediately, while my daughter hands round the tea and muffins—­you can bring them in on a tray.”

The old domestic hurries into the kitchen grumbling at the English dainty, and cuts some slices of bread and covers them with butter; but as she had never thought of the ham, she cogitates a long time how she can supply the want of it—­at last, on looking round, she discovers a piece of beef that had been left at dinner.

“Pardieu,” she says, “I’ll cut some lumps of this and put them on the bread.  With plenty of salt they’ll pass very well for ham—­they’ll drive me wild with their English dishes—­they will.”

The maid speedily does as she says, and then hurries into the room with a tray covered with her extempore ham sandwiches.

Every body takes one,—­for they have grown quite fashionable along with tea.  But immediately there is an universal murmur in the assembly.  The ladies throw their slices into the fire, the gentlemen spit theirs on the furniture, and they cry—­“why the devil do people give us things like these?—­they’re detestable.”

“It’s my opinion, God forgive me! the man means to feed us with scraps from the pig-trough,” says another.

“It’s a regular do, this soiree,” says a third.

“The tea is disgustingly smoked,” says a fourth.

“And all the little cakes look as if they had been fingered before,” says the fifth.

“Decidedly they wish to poison us,” says the big man in the neckcloth, looking very morose.

M. Lupot is in despair.  He goes in search of Nannette, who has hidden herself in the kitchen; and he busies himself in gathering up the fragments of the bread and butter from the floor and the fireplace.

Madame Lupot says nothing; but she is in very bad humour, for she has put on a new cap, which she felt sure would be greatly admired; and a lady has come to her and said—­

“Ah, madame, what a shocking head-dress!—­your cap is very old-fashioned—­those shapes are quite gone out.”