"Hullo, old boy! All's well. I've just seen Marçais. He's delighted. You seem to have the voice of the charmer all right. Good Lord, you haven't wasted much time," he said, noticing my transformation. I thought I detected a touch of sarcasm in his tone. I thought of Gautier's story of Baudelaire rubbing his new suit with sandpaper to take off that offensive nap so dear to philistines and bourgeois. My confidence was a little shaken. I almost expected to see my newly-won joys dissolve on the spot. Then I thought, "What does it matter? I know it's only ready-made, but I couldn't come here in my shabby boots and a suit two years old. Just let them wait a day or two!" And the knowledge that I had been fitted out at one of the most expensive tailor's restored my spirits entirely. Clotilde arrived. She had on white fox furs which seemed to me the last word in luxury and good taste. When I had bought a poor flower-seller's entire stock of violets for her, she condescended to notice my existence and soon made me feel I was much more to her liking. "Clotilde," said Ribeyre, "if you love me you will exchange Surville for my friend Vignerte this evening. He is in funds and he's leaving the day after tomorrow, two things which women seldom fail to appreciate." A quarter of an hour earlier this extremely masculine joke would have jarred on me very greatly, but the terrible white port was already at work, and besides Clotilde wore an amused smile and did not say no. Surville arrived with the other man, one Mouton-Massé. They were both in the Ministry of the Interior. "We can't stick in this hole," said lanky Surville. "Twice running is too much. Charmed to see you, sir. You dine with us, of course?" "My friend Vignerte wants you to give him the pleasure of being your host," said Ribeyre. "He is leaving the day after tomorrow for the Court of Lautenburg and wants us to share his travelling expenses." Little Mouton-Massé indicated that my desire met with his approval. "Where shall we go?" For a good ten minutes these gentlemen discussed the point, tossing from mouth to mouth names utterly unknown to me: "Viel," "Les Sergents," "La Tour," and even stranger animal names, "Le Coucou," "L'Escargot," "L'Ane Rouge."
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