He had settled the family in an ostentatious house in the avenida Victor Hugo, for which he paid a rental of twenty-eight thousand francs.  Dona Luisa had to go and come many times before she could accustom herself to the imposing aspect of the concierges—­he, decorated with gold trimmings on his black uniform and wearing white whiskers like a notary in a comedy, she with a chain of gold upon her exuberant bosom, and receiving the tenants in a red and gold salon.  In the rooms above was ultra-modern luxury, gilded and glacial, with white walls and glass doors with tiny panes which exasperated Desnoyers, who longed for the complicated carvings and rich furniture in vogue during his youth.  He himself directed the arrangement and furnishings of the various rooms which always seemed empty.

Chichi protested against her father’s avarice when she saw him buying slowly and with much calculation and hesitation.  “Avarice, no!” he retorted, “it is because I know the worth of things.”

Nothing pleased him that he had not acquired at one-third of its value.  Beating down those who overcharged but proved the superiority of the buyer.  Paris offered him one delightful spot which he could not find anywhere else in the world—­the Hotel Drouot.  He would go there every afternoon that he did not find other important auctions advertised in the papers.  For many years, there was no famous failure in Parisian life, with its consequent liquidation, from which he did not carry something away.  The use and need of these prizes were matters of secondary interest, the great thing was to get them for ridiculous prices.  So the trophies from the auction-rooms now began to inundate the apartment which, at the beginning, he had been furnishing with such desperate slowness.

His daughter now complained that the home was getting overcrowded.  The furnishings and ornaments were handsome, but too many . . . far too many!  The white walls seemed to scowl at the magnificent sets of chairs and the overflowing glass cabinets.  Rich and velvety carpets over which had passed many generations, covered all the compartments.  Showy curtains, not finding a vacant frame in the salons, adorned the doors leading into the kitchen.  The wall mouldings gradually disappeared under an overlay of pictures, placed close together like the scales of a cuirass.  Who now could accuse Desnoyers of avarice? . . .  He was investing far more than a fashionable contractor would have dreamed of spending.

The underlying idea still was to acquire all this for a fourth of its price—­an exciting bait which lured the economical man into continuous dissipation.  He could sleep well only when he had driven a good bargain during the day.  He bought at auction thousands of bottles of wine consigned by bankrupt firms, and he who scarcely ever drank, packed his wine cellars to overflowing, advising his family to use the champagne as freely as ordinary wine.  The failure of a furrier induced him to buy for fourteen thousand francs pelts worth ninety thousand.  In consequence, the entire Desnoyers family seemed suddenly to be suffering as frightfully from cold as though a polar iceberg had invaded the avenida Victor Hugo.  The father kept only one fur coat for himself but ordered three for his son.  Chichi and Dona Luisa appeared arrayed in all kinds of silky and luxurious skins—­one day chinchilla, other days blue fox, marten or seal.