be able to pay you for the copy, as La Guepe does not prosper; I will even admit that it only stands on one leg.  In order to make it appear for a few months longer, I have recently been obliged to go to a money-lender, who has left me, instead of the classical stuffed crocodile, a trained horse which he had just taken from an insolvent circus.  I mounted the noble animal to go to the Bois, but at the Place de la Concorde he began to waltz around it, and I was obliged to get rid of this dancing quadruped at a considerable loss.  So your contribution to La Guepe would have to be gratuitous, like those of all the rest.  You will give me the credit of having saluted you first of all, my dear Violette, by the rare and glorious title of true poet.  You will let me reserve the pleasure of intoxicating you with the odor that a printer’s first proofs give, will you not?  Is it agreed?”

Yes, it was agreed!  That is to say, Amedee, touched to the depths of his heart by so much good grace and fraternal cordiality, was so troubled in trying to find words to express his gratitude, that he made a terrible botch of it.

“Do not thank me,” said Paul Sillery, with his pleasant but rather sceptical smile, “and do not think me better than I am.  If all your verses are as strong as these that I have just read, you will soon publish a volume that will make a sensation, and—­who knows?—­perhaps will inspire me first of all with an ugly attack of jealousy.  Poets are no better than other people; they are like the majority of Adam’s sons, vain and envious, only they still keep the ability to admire, and the gift of enthusiasm, and that proves their superiority and is to their credit.  I am delighted to have found a mare’s nest to-day, an original and sincere poet, and with your permission we will celebrate this happy meeting.  The price of the waltzing horse having hardly sufficed to pay off the debt to the publisher of La Guepe, I am not in funds this evening; but I have credit at Pere Lebuffle’s, and I invite you all to dinner at his pot-house; after which we will go to my rooms, where I expect a few friends, and there you will read us your verses, Violette; we will all read some of them, and have a fine orgy of rich rhymes.”

This proposition was received with favor by the three young men with the long hair, a la Clodion and Chilperic.  As for Violette, he would have followed Paul Sillery at that moment, had it been into the infernal regions.

Jocquelet could not go with them, he had promised his evening to a lady, he said, and he gave this excuse with such a conceited smile that all were convinced he was going to crown himself with the most flattering of laurels at the mansion of some princess of the royal blood.  In reality, he was going to see one of his Conservatoire friends, a large, lanky dowdy, as swarthy as a mole and full of pretensions, who was destined for the tragic line of character, and inflicted upon her lover Athalie’s dream, Camille’s imprecations, and Phedre’s monologue.