milord spoke to him, and his noble master might, perhaps, have
pardoned that breach of the law domestic. Milord would have put up

with a good deal from Toby; he was very fond of him. Toby could drive
a tandem dog-cart, riding on the wheeler, postilion fashion; his legs

did not reach the shafts, he looked in fact very much like one of the
cherub heads circling about the Eternal Father in old Italian

pictures. But an English journalist wrote a deliciousdescription of
the little angel, in the course of which he said that Paddy was quite

too pretty for a tiger; in fact, he offered to bet that Paddy was a
tame tigress. The description, on the heads of it, was calculated to

poison minds and end in something 'improper.' And the superlative of
'improper' is the way to the gallows. Milord's circumspection was

highly approved by my lady.
"But poor Toby, now that his precise position in insular zoology had

been called in question, found himself hopelessly out of place. At
that time Godefroid had blossomed out at the French Embassy in London,

where he learned the adventures of Toby, Joby, Paddy. Godefroid found
the infantweeping over a pot of jam (he had already lost the guineas

with which milord gilded his misfortune). Godefroid took possession of
him; and so it fell out that on his return among us he brought back

with him the sweetest thing in tigers from England. He was known by
his tiger--as Couture is known by his waistcoats--and found no

difficulty in entering the fraternity of the club yclept to-day the
Grammont. He had renounced the diplomaticcareer; he ceased

accordingly to alarm the susceptibilites of the ambitious; and as he
had no very dangerous amount of intellect, he was well looked upon

everywhere.
"Some of us would feel mortified if we saw only smiling faces wherever

we went; we enjoy the sour contortions of envy. Godefroid did not like
to be disliked. Every one has his taste. Now for the solid, practical

aspects of life!
"The distinguishing feature of his chambers, where I have licked my

lips over breakfast more than once, was a mysterious dressing-closet,
nicely decorated, and comfortably appointed, with a grate in it and a

bath-tub. It gave upon a narrow staircase, the folding doors were
noiseless, the locks well oiled, the hinges discreet, the window panes

of frosted glass, the curtain impervious to light. While the bedroom
was, as it ought to have been, in a fine disorder which would suit the

most exactingpainter in water-colors; while everything therein was
redolent of the Bohemian life of a young man of fashion, the dressing-

closet was like a shrine--white, spotless, neat, and warm. There were
no draughts from door or window, the carpet had been made soft for

bare feet hastily put to the floor in a sudden panic of alarm--which
stamps him as your thoroughbred dandy that knows life; for here, in a

few moments, he may show himself either a noodle or a master in those
little details in which a man's character is revealed. The Marquise

previously quoted--no, it was the Marquise de Rochefide--came out of
that dressing-closet in a furious rage, and never went back again. She

discovered nothing 'improper' in it. Godefroid used to keep a little
cupboard full of----"

"Waistcoats?" suggested Finot.
"Come, now, just like you, great Turcaret that you are. (I shall never

form that fellow.) Why, no. Full of cakes, and fruit, and dainty
little flasks of Malaga and Lunel; an en cas de nuit in Louis

Quatorze's style; anything that can tickle the delicate and well-bred
appetite of sixteen quarterings. A knowing old man-servant, very

strong in matters veterinary, waited on the horses and groomed
Godefroid. He had been with the late M. de Beaudenord, Godefroid's

father, and bore Godefroid an inveterate affection, a kind of heart
complaint which has almost disappeared among domestic servants since

savings banks were established.
"All material well-being is based upon arithmetic. You to whom Paris

is known down to its very excrescences, will see that Beaudenord must
have acquired about seventeen thousand livres per annum; for he paid

some seventeen francs of taxes and spent a thousand crowns on his own
whims. Well, dear boys, when Godefroid came of age, the Marquis

d'Aiglemont submitted to him such an account of his trust as none of
us would be likely to give a nephew; Godefroid's name was inscribed as

the owner of eighteen thousand livres of rentes, a remnant of his
father's wealth spared by the harrow of the great reduction under the

Republic and the hailstorms of Imperial arrears. D'Aiglemont, that
upright guardian, also put his ward in possession of some thirty

thousand francs of savings invested with the firm of Nucingen; saying
with all the charm of a grand seigneur and the indulgence of a soldier

of the Empire, that he had contrived to put it aside for his ward's
young man's follies. 'If you will take my advice, Godefroid,' added

he, 'instead of squandering the money like a fool, as so many young
men do, let it go in follies that will be useful to you afterwards.

Take an attache's post at Turin, and then go to Naples, and from
Naples to London, and you will be amused and learn something for your

money. Afterwards, if you think of a career, the time and the money
will not have been thrown away.' The late lamented d'Aiglemont had

more sense than people credited him with, which is more than can be
said of some of us."

"A young fellow that starts with an assuredincome of eighteen
thousand livres at one-and-twenty is lost," said Couture.

"Unless he is miserly, or very much above the ordinary level," added
Blondet.

"Well, Godefroid sojourned in the four capitals of Italy," continued
Bixiou. "He lived in England and Germany, he spent some little time at

St. Petersburg, he ran over Holland but he parted company with the
aforesaid thirty thousand francs by living as if he had thirty

thousand a year. Everywhere he found the same supreme de volaille, the
same aspics, and French wines; he heard French spokenwherever he went

--in short, he never got away from Paris. He ought, of course, to have
tried to deprave his disposition, to fence himself in triple brass, to

get rid of his illusions, to learn to hear anything said without a
blush, and to master the inmost secrets of the Powers.--Pooh! with a

good deal of trouble he equipped himself with four languages--that is
to say, he laid in a stock of four words for one idea. Then he came

back, and certain tedious dowagers, styled 'conquests' abroad, were
left disconsolate. Godefroid came back, shy, scarcely formed, a good

fellow with a confiding disposition, incapable of saying ill of any
one who honored him with an admittance to his house, too staunch to be

a diplomatist, altogether he was what we call a thoroughly good
fellow."

"To cut it short, a brat with eighteen thousand livres per annum to
drop over the first investment that turns up," said Couture.

"That confounded Couture has such a habit of anticipating dividends,
that he is anticipating the end of my tale. Where was I? Oh!

Beaudenord came back. When he took up his abode on the Quai Malaquais,
it came to pass that a thousand francs over and above his needs was

altogetherinsufficient to keep up his share of a box at the Italiens
and the Opera properly. When he lost twenty-five or thirty louis at

play at one swoop, naturally he paid; when he won, he spent the money;
so should we if we were fools enough to be drawn into a bet.

Beaudenord, feeling pinched with his eighteen thousand francs, saw the
necessity of creating what we to-day call a balance in hand. It was a

great notion of his 'not to get too deep.' He took counsel of his
sometime guardian. 'The funds are now at par, my dear boy,' quoth

d'Aiglemont; 'sell out. I have sold mine and my wife's. Nucingen has
all my capital, and is giving me six per cent; do likewise, you will

have one per cent the more upon your capital, and with that you will
be quite comfortable.'

"In three days' time our Godefroid was comfortable. His increase of
income exactly supplied his superfluities; his material happiness was

complete.
"Suppose that it were possible to read the minds of all the young men

in Paris at one glance (as, it appears, will be done at the Day of
Judgment with all the millions upon millions that have groveled in all

spheres, and worn all uniforms or the uniform of nature), and to ask
them whether happiness at six-and-twenty is or is not made up of the

following items--to wit, to own a saddle-horse and a tilbury, or a
cab, with a fresh, rosy-faced Toby Joby Paddy no bigger than your

fist, and to hire an unimpeachable brougham for twelve francs an