The Suicides in the Rue Des Vents

snores. But friendship is-- Again a glass! It goes well, this wine. Let us have a lobster! I swear I have an appetite; they make one peckish, these suicides, n'est-ce-pas? I shall not be formal--if you consider it your treat, you shall pay. A lobster and another bottle, hein? At the expense of you, or me?"

"Ah, the bill all in one!" declared Tournicquot.

"Well, well," said Beguinet, "you must have your way! What a happy man I am! Already I feel twenty years younger. You would not believe what I have suffered! My agonies would fill a book. Really! By nature I am domesticated, but my home is impossible--I shudder when I enter it. It is only in a restaurant that I see a clean tablecloth. Absolutely. I pig. All Lucrèce thinks about is dress."

"No, no," demurred Tournicquot; "to that I cannot agree."

"What do you know? You 'cannot agree'! You have seen her when she is laced in her stage costume, when she minces and prattles, with the paint and the powder, and the false