Page:Victor Hugo - Notre Dame de Paris (tr. Haynes, 1902).djvu/251

The Story of a Wheaten Cake "Why, it was with the Lord Cardinal, at the Petit-Bourbon, that the Flemings supped."

"Not at all! At the Hôtel-de-Ville!"

"No, it wasn't — it was at the Petit-Bourbon."

"I know that it was at the H6tel-de-Ville," retorted Oudarde sharply, "for the very good reason that Doctor Scourable made them a speech in Latin, with which they were very well satisfied. My husband told me, and he is one of the sworn booksellers."

"And I know that it was at the Petit-Bourbon," responded Gervaise no less warmly, " for I can tell you exactly what my Lord Cardinal's purveyor set before them: twelve double quarts of hippocras, white, pale, and red; twenty-four boxes of gilded double marchpanes of Lyons; four-and-twenty wax torches of two pounds apiece ; and six demi-hogsheads of Beaune wine, both white and yellow, the best that could be procured. I hope that's proof enough ! I have it from my husband, who's Captain of the fifty guards at the Chatelet, who only this morning was making a comparison between the Flemish Ambassadors and those of Prester John and the Emperor of Trebizonde, who came to Paris from Mesopotamia and wore rings in their ears."

"So true is it that they supped at the Hotel de Ville," replied Oudarde, quite unmoved by this string of evidence, "that never was seen so fine a show of meats and delicacies."

"I tell you they were served by Le Sec, the town ser- geant at the Petit-Bourbon, and that is what has put you wrong."

"At the Hôtel-de-Ville, I say."

"At the Petit-Bourbon, my dear! And what's more, they lit up the word 'Hope,' which stands over the great doorway, with fairy glasses."

"At the Hôtel-de-Ville ! At the Hôtel-de-Ville !— for Husson le Voir played the flute to them."

"I tell you, no!"

"I tell you, yes!"

"I tell you, no!"

The good, fat Oudarde was preparing to reply, and the quarrel would no doubt have ended in the pulling of caps, had not Mahiette suddenly made a diversion by exclaiming: K 207 Vol. 4