“My mother, monsieur!” exclaimed Oscar, in a tone of indignation.  “That was the person in charge of our household.”

“‘Our household’ is a very aristocratic term,” remarked the count.

“Kings have households,” replied Oscar, proudly.

A look from Georges repressed the desire to laugh which took possession of everybody; he contrived to make Mistigris and the painter understand that it was necessary to manage Oscar cleverly in order to work this new mine of amusement.

“Monsieur is right,” said the great Schinner to the count, motioning towards Oscar.  “Well-bred people always talk of their ‘households’; it is only common persons like ourselves who say ‘home.’  For a man so covered with decorations—­”

“‘Nunc my eye, nunc alii,’” whispered Mistigris.

“—­you seem to know little of the language of the courts.  I ask your future protection, Excellency,” added Schinner, turning to Oscar.

“I congratulate myself on having travelled with three such distinguished men,” said the count,—­“a painter already famous, a future general, and a young diplomatist who may some day recover Belgium for France.”

Having committed the odious crime of repudiating his mother, Oscar, furious from a sense that his companions were laughing at him, now resolved, at any cost, to make them pay attention to him.

“‘All is not gold that glitters,’” he began, his eyes flaming.

“That’s not it,” said Mistigris. “‘All is not old that titters.’  You’ll never get on in diplomacy if you don’t know your proverbs better than that.”

“I may not know proverbs, but I know my way—­”

“It must be far,” said Georges, “for I saw that person in charge of your household give you provisions enough for an ocean voyage:  rolls, chocolate—­”

“A special kind of bread and chocolate, yes, monsieur,” returned Oscar; “my stomach is much too delicate to digest the victuals of a tavern.”

“‘Victuals’ is a word as delicate and refined as your stomach,” said Georges.

“Ah!  I like that word ‘victuals,’” cried the great painter.

“The word is all the fashion in the best society,” said Mistigris.  “I use it myself at the cafe of the Black Hen.”

“Your tutor is, doubtless, some celebrated professor, isn’t he?  —­Monsieur Andrieux of the Academie Francaise, or Monsieur Royer-Collard?” asked Schinner.

“My tutor is or was the Abbe Loraux, now vicar of Saint-Sulpice,” replied Oscar, recollecting the name of the confessor at his school.

“Well, you were right to take a private tutor,” said Mistigris.  “‘Tuto, tutor, celeritus, and jocund.’  Of course, you will reward him well, your abbe?”

“Undoubtedly he will be made a bishop some day,” said Oscar.

“By your family influence?” inquired Georges gravely.

“We shall probably contribute to his rise, for the Abbe Frayssinous is constantly at our house.”