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Rh dinners in society, a dinner where I was received as something of a lion, and to which I brought the appetite of a famished man and the self-sufficiency of a schoolboy. Under such circumstances the genuineness of the wines and of the compliments is taken for granted with equal confidingness. At all events, I compared my own situation with that of my former chum of the South and experienced one of those benevolent impulses that are as natural to youth as activity and good spirits; I took ten louis and put them in an envelope and addressed it to Ladrat, then I summoned my concierge. If this man had only been on hand my old comrade would have had the money that same evening, but as it was he happened to be out on some errand. 'It will do as well to-morrow,' I said to myself, and went out, leaving the envelope lying on my table in readiness for him. I was so firmly resolved in mind to do the action that I experienced in advance that mean little feeling of vanity and self-laudation that is always inspired by the consciousness that one is doing a generous deed. It is not a very creditable sentiment, that vanity is not, but it is very human. To this vanity was presently added another one, and this was of an excessively gross description. At the house where I dined I found myself seated between two very stylish women, who seemed to endeavor to outdo each other in the flattering attentions which they lavished on me. To make my story short, I left about eleven o'clock, completely overmastered by one of those attacks of fatuousness which make a man think that he owns the earth, and I brought up at our club, under the guidance of one of my fellow-guests who had offered me his