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than that, perhaps.

      DEBRAY

      I hope he isn’t bringing our lunch?

      ALBERT

      Rest easy—our lunch is preparing in the maternal kitchen. Decidedly, you must be hungry?

      DEBRAY

      Yes, I dined yesterday at Mr. de Villefort’s. Have you noticed something, dear friend—one dines very badly at the homes of all the legal people.

      ALBERT

      Oh, by God! Disparage the dinners of others—this way one may dine well with your ministers.

      BEAUCHAMP

      (in the antechamber)

      He’s waiting for us, right?

      ALBERT

      Eh! Hold on, I heard the voice of Beauchamp in the antechamber, you can argue and that will make you patient.

      GERMAIN

      (announcing)

      Mr. Beauchamp!

      ALBERT

      Come in, come in—ferocious writer! Wait, here’s Mr. Debray who detests you without reading you—at least that’s what he says.

      BEAUCHAMP

      I’m the same. I criticize him without knowing what he does. Good day, my dear Albert! An explanation! I see Debray who drinks sherry and eats biscuits. Are we lunching or having dinner? I have to go to the Chamber. As you see, all is not rosy in our job.

      ALBERT

      We are lunching. We are waiting only for two more people.

      BEAUCHAMP

      What type of people?

      ALBERT

      A gentleman and a traveler.

      BEAUCHAMP

      Fine! Two hours for the gentleman and one hour for the traveler. I will return for dessert. Keep me some fresh coffee and cigars. I will eat a cutlet at the Senate.

      ALBERT

      Don’t do anything of the kind, my dear fellow, whether the guests arrive or not, at 10:30 we go to table.

      BEAUCHAMP

      (looking at his watch)

      Ten o’clock! Well, all right, we will test it. Anyway, I am horribly sulky this morning.

      ALBERT

      Fine, you are like Debray. Now it seems to me if the ministry is sad, the opposition should be gay.

      BEAUCHAMP

      Ah, that’s because you don’t know what threatens me. I heard Mr. Danglars speak in the Chamber this morning and tonight, at his wife’s, a tragedy of a peer of France.

      ALBERT

      My dear fellow, this morning you are revoltingly bitter. Recall that the Parisian gossip speaks of a marriage between myself and Miss Eugenie Danglars. I cannot in good conscience let you speak ill of the eloquence of a man who one day must say to me, “You know, Monsieur le Vicomte, that I am giving two millions to my daughter.”

      BEAUCHAMP

      Come now, Albert, this marriage will never take place. The King is able to make Danglars a baron—can even make him a peer—but he can never make him a gentleman and the Count de Morcerf is too aristocratic a swordsman to consent to a misalliance for two paltry millions.

      ALBERT

      Two millions, that’s pretty now.

      BEAUCHAMP

      It’s the social capital for a Boulevard theater or a railway from the Jardin de Plantes to La Rapée.

      DEBRAY

      Let him say it, Morcerf, and get married. You are marrying the escutcheon of a moneybags, right? Well, what does the rest matter to you? A blason less and a zero more is worth more on this type of escutcheon. You have seven martlets in your coat-of-arms and you will give three to your wife—that leaves you with four. It’s one more than the Duke of Guise who failed to be king of France, and whose cousin-germain was Emperor of Germany.

      BEAUCHAMP

      Oh, you, Debray, everyone knows your weakness for the whole family.

      GERMAIN

      (announcing)

      The Marquis de Châteaubrun.

      (Châteaubrun enters.)

      BEAUCHAMP

      Good! Here’s the gentleman; we are waiting only for the traveler.

      DEBRAY

      What! Châteaubrun? But I thought he was in Africa.

      CHÂTEAUBRUN

      I got back yesterday, my dear Mr. Debray.

      ALBERT

      And I offer you something today, one can’t be served any hotter, I hope!

      CHÂTEAUBRUN

      Good day, Albert. Good day, Mr. de Beauchamp. I have to thank you.

      BEAUCHAMP

      Me?

      CHÂTEAUBRUN

      Yes. You have consecrated half a column to me and while that doesn’t displease us very much, it flatters us greatly—we men of the world.

      BEAUCHAMP

      I think so, indeed! Monsieur le Marquis plays in amateur theaters—to look arms crossed like the taking of Constantine; they don’t take Constantine. They beat the retreat; the gentleman uncrosses his arms and performs prodigies.

      CHÂTEAUBRUN

      Yes, but there is a man who makes greater prodigies than I do, since he saved me—and that one you haven’t spoken of.

      BEAUCHAMP

      Ah, yes, Mr. Maximilian Morel, a Captain of the Spahis, who arrived just as two Arabs—note that four had already been killed—who arrived as two Arabs were getting ready to strangle you. Why the devil do I mention it? He’s a soldier and he’s only doing his job.

      CHÂTEAUBRUN

      It’s all the same, my dear fellow, on this occasion I recommend him to you and to you, also, my dear Debray.

      DEBRAY

      To me? But I am in the Interior and this concerns War.

      BEAUCHAMP

      Bah—between ministries.

      DEBRAY

      With the result that you are here, right? Good! We are only waiting for the traveler.

      BEAUCHAMP

      It’s 10:15.

      ALBERT

      I demand a respite until 10:30. Tell us, Châteaubrun, you should have brought us your savior. I ought to put him face-to-face with mine!

      CHÂTEAUBRUN

      Your savior, Albert? You have been saved, too? You?

      DEBRAY

      What can we do to reward these two benefactors of humanity? We have only the Montyon prize!

      CHÂTEAUBRUN

      And from what part of the world does this savior come to us?

      ALBERT

      Truly, I would be very embarrassed to say. When I invited him, it was nearly two years ago; it was in Rome, and who can say what road he’s been taking since then?

      CHÂTEAUBRUN

      Ah, so—then he’s the

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