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272 had known him for years and years. In his turn he asked me:

"Tell me, are you intimate with papa?"

"Your father!" I cried, pretending to be scandalized. "Oh! Monsieur Xavier! Such a holy man!"

"His laugh redoubled, and rang out loudly: Papa! Oh! papa! Why, he is intimate with all the servants here. Then you are not yet intimate with papa? You astonish me."

"Oh! no," I replied, laughing also. "Only he brings me the 'Fin de Siècle,' the Rigolo,' the Petites Femmes de Paris'."

That set him off in a delirium of joy, and, shaking more than ever with laughter, he cried:

"Papa! Oh! he is astonishing!"

And, being now well started, he continued in a comical tone:

"He is like mamma. Yesterday she made me another scene. I am disgracing her, her and papa. Would you believe it? And religion, and society, and everything! It is twisting. Then I declared to her: 'My dear little mother, it is agreed; I will settle down to a regular life on the day when you shall have given up your lovers.' That was a hot one, eh? That shut her up. Oh! no, you know, they make me very tired, these authors of my being. I have supped on their lectures. By the way, you know Fumeau, don't you?"