"Will you have a little piece, Saint-Arthur?"
"I? never! but yes--just a taste.--That rascally pastry cook! he was quite right to say that no one would know what it was; but he will have to give me back the feathers, at least."
"Pouah! how nasty it is," said Zizi, pushing her plate away. "So tough that you can't chew it."
"And a certain flavor which is not exactly agreeable," said Jéricourt. "The pastry cook did not disguise it quite enough."
"Here, take all this away," said Roncherolle, handing the plate with the pie to Beauvinet; "and for your punishment, eat it!"
"Yes, clear out with it, you stupid beast!" cried Saint-Arthur. "Off with you, and if I wasn't holding myself back--What an ass he is! I am sure that if one should tell him to take a dog to the pastry-cook he would have it made into a pie."
Beauvinet took the pie under his arm, and angrily pulled his wig over his right ear, grumbling: "They don't know what they want; I do what they tell me to, and they ain't satisfied! Let them make their pies themselves after this."
The adventure of the pie amused the guests mightily; Saint-Arthur alone did not share his friends' gayety; at every mouthful that he swallowed, he muttered:
"My poor parrot! my poor Coco! how prettily he said: 'Dutaillis is lovely!'--What a misfortune!--'Applaud, clap Zizi!'--I shall never be consoled."
"You are going to begin by being consoled right away," said the young actress; "and don't bore us any longer with your complaints. Don't you see that the story of your pie is a hundred times better and funnier than your bird would have been? But here comes the dessert. I want some champagne now, and I want my good friend Roncherolle to keep his promise to us."
"Monsieur is going to begin his exercises!" said Jéricourt ironically. "Let us see if it is the same thing as at Nicolet's: worse and worse and more of it."
"We will do our utmost to satisfy monsieur," replied Roncherolle, emptying a glass of champagne.
"But first of all," said Zizi, "as I am rather inquisitive, I want to hear the story of that little bunch of violets that you promised me."
"Ah! so he has stories too!" muttered the literary man; "sapristi! we are going to have a deal of entertainment!"