morning.  But mind, no waste!  Keep an eye on everything.  Pass me the broom; put more oil in those lamps; don’t make blunders.  Arrange the remains of the dessert so as to make a show on the sideboard; ask my sister to come and help us.  I’m sure I don’t know what she’s thinking about, that dawdle!  Heavens, how slow she is!  Here, take away these chairs, they’ll want all the room they can get.”

The salon was full of Barniols, Collevilles, Phellions, Laudigeois, and many others whom the announcement of a dance at the Thuilliers’, spread about in the Luxembourg between two and four in the afternoon, the hour at which the bourgeoisie takes its walk, had drawn thither.

“Are you ready, Brigitte?” said Colleville, bolting into the dining-room; “it is nine o’clock, and they are packed as close as herrings in the salon.  Cardot, his wife and son and daughter and future son-in-law have just come, accompanied by that young Vinet; the whole faubourg Saint Antoine is debouching.  Can’t we move the piano in here?”

Then he gave the signal, by tuning his clarionet, the joyous sounds of which were greeted with huzzas from the salon.

It is useless to describe a ball of this kind.  The toilets, faces, and conversations were all in keeping with one fact which will surely suffice even the dullest imagination; they passed round, on tarnished and discolored trays, common tumblers filled with wine, “eau rougie,” and “eau sucree.”  The trays on which were glasses of orgeat and glasses of syrup and water appeared only at long intervals.  There were five card-tables and twenty-five players, and eighteen dancers of both sexes.  At one o’clock in the morning, all present—­Madame Thuillier, Mademoiselle Brigitte, Madame Phellion, even Phellion himself—­were dragged into the vivacities of a country-dance, vulgarly called “La Boulangere,” in which Dutocq figured with a veil over his head, after the manner of the Kabyl.  The servants who were waiting to escort their masters home, and those of the household, were audience to this performance; and after the interminable dance had lasted one whole hour it was proposed to carry Brigitte in triumph when she gave the announcement that supper was served.  This circumstance made her see the necessity of hiding a dozen bottles of old burgundy.  In short, the company had amused themselves so well, the matrons as well as the young girls, that Thuillier found occasion to say:—­

“Well, well, this morning we little thought we should have such a fete to-night.”

“There’s never more pleasure,” said the notary Cardot, “than in just such improvised balls.  Don’t talk to me of parties where everybody stands on ceremony.”

This opinion, we may remark, is a standing axiom among the bourgeoisie.

“Well, for my part,” said Madame Minard, “I prefer the dignified old ways.”

“We didn’t mean that for you, madame; your salon is the chosen haunt of pleasure,” said Dutocq.