“No ceremony, I pray!” rejoined the Baron. “After curfew, one is at least free to receive one’s friends in what costume one likes. Besides, my dear friend, there is something which requires more immediate attention.”
“What is that, my lord?”
“To restore Madame Magloire to her senses, who, you see, has fainted in my arms.”
“Fainted! Suzanne fainted! Ah! my God!” cried the little man, putting down his candle on the chimneypiece, “how ever did such a misfortune happen?”
“Wait, wait, Monsieur Magloire!” said my lord, “we must first get your wife into a more comfortable position in an armchair; nothing annoys women so much as not to be at their ease when they are unfortunate enough to faint.”
“You are right, my lord; let us first put her in the armchair. … Oh Suzanne! poor Suzanne! How can such a thing as this have happened?”
“I pray you at least, my dear fellow, not to think any ill of me at finding me in your house at such a time of night!”
“Far from it, my lord,” replied the Bailiff, “the friendship with which you honour us, and the virtue of Madame Magloire are sufficient guarantees for me to be glad at any hour to have my house honoured by your presence.”
“Triple dyed idiot!” murmured the shoemaker, “unless I ought rather to call him a doubly clever dissembler. … No matter which, however! we have yet to see how my lord is going to get out of it.”
“Nevertheless,” continued Maître Magloire, dipping a handkerchief into some aromatic water, and bathing his wife’s temples with it,