"Hum! you would be quite capable of going to her for other supplies."
"O Zizi! for heaven's sake, don't be jealous like this. Besides, this flower girl is one of Jéricourt's conquests; one of his victims."
"I don't deny it, I committed that sin; and monsieur here will bear me out in saying that the little one is worth the trouble."
"I will bear you out in saying that the little one is pretty, monsieur, but that's all; for, on the day that I saw you in her company, you did not have the air of having made a conquest of her!"
"This old fellow is decidedly antipathetic to me!" said Jéricourt to himself.
"Come, Alfred! some champagne--right away! I want some champagne--and I want it frappé."
"Here it is, my siren; it's behind us, cooking in the ice.--Ah! now is the time when Monsieur de Roncherolle is going to teach us a lot of pretty things.--Jéricourt, monsieur knows thirty-three ways of drinking a glass of champagne!"
"For my experiments," said Roncherolle, "I must have cups, not goblets."
"Here are some; I ordered two kinds of glasses."
"I fill my glass--this is the first way; attention!"
Roncherolle coolly emptied his glass and said:
"First of all, there's that way--to drink as everybody else does."
"It's lucky that you know one," said Zizi; "otherwise it might be thought that you had to be driven to water."
"You will allow me to eat a little sweetbread first?"
"Otherwise," sneered Jéricourt, "one might think that you invited monsieur to dinner for the sole purpose of learning to drink."
"And if that were so," rejoined Roncherolle, "I should not bear my neighbor a grudge; that would prove that I am still good for something, and one so often entertains people who are good for nothing!"
"The second way, my dear fellow, the second way!" said Zizi, with a playful tap on Roncherolle's cheek.
"At your service, _belle dame_.--Look--this glass is full; I put it on this plate, and the point is to drain it without touching it with the hands or spilling a drop."
"Oh! that must be extremely difficult--I will go farther and say that it seems to me impossible," said Saint-Arthur.
Roncherolle took the plate on which the glass stood, lifted it, put the glass to his lips, then tipped it toward his mouth, still holding it steady with the plate, and swallowed all it contained.