Matta insisted that the Chevalier should take up his quarters with him; to which he only consented on condition of equally contributing to the expense.  As they were both liberal and magnificent, at their common cost they gave the best designed and most luxurious entertainments that had ever yet been seen.  Play was wonderfully productive at first, and the Chevalier restored by a hundred different ways that which he obtained only by one.  The generals, being entertained by turns, admired their magnificence, and were dissatisfied with their own officers for not keeping such good tables and attendance.  The Chevalier had the talent of setting off the most indifferent things to advantage; and his wit was so generally acknowledged, that it was a kind of disgrace not to submit to his taste.  To him Matta resigned the care of furnishing the table and doing its honours; and, charmed with the general applause, persuaded himself that nothing could be more honourable than their way of living, and nothing more easy than to continue it; but he soon perceived that the greatest prosperity is not the most lasting.  Good living, bad economy, dishonest servants, and ill-luck, all uniting together to disconcert their housekeeping, their table was going to be gradually laid aside, when the Chevalier’s genius, fertile in resources, undertook to support his former credit by the following expedient.

They had never yet conferred about the state of their finances, although the steward had acquainted each, separately, that he must either receive money to continue the expenses, or give in his accounts.  One day, when the Chevalier came home sooner than usual, he found Matta fast asleep in an easy chair, and, being unwilling to disturb his rest, he began musing on his project.  Matta awoke without his perceiving it; and having, for a short time, observed the deep contemplation he seemed involved in, and the profound silence between two persons who had never held their tongues for a moment when together before, he broke it by a sudden fit of laughter, which increased in proportion as the other stared at him.  “A merry way of waking, and ludicrous enough,” said the Chevalier; “what is the matter, and whom do you laugh at!” “Faith, Chevalier,” said Matta, “I am laughing at a dream I had just now, which is so natural and diverting, that I must make you laugh at it also.  I was dreaming that we had dismissed our maitre-d’hotel, our cook, and our confectioner, having resolved, for the remainder of the campaign, to live upon others as others have lived upon us:  this was my dream.  Now tell me, Chevalier, on what were you musing?” “Poor fellow!” said the Chevalier, shrugging up his shoulders, “you are knocked down at once, and thrown into the utmost consternation and despair at some silly stories which the maitre-d’hotel has been telling you as well as me.  What! after the figure we have made in the face of the nobility and foreigners in the army, shall we give it up, and