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BUTTERFLIES AND GRASSHOPPERS.
Amedee was the first to arrive at the rendezvous.

He had hardly pronounced Maurice Roger's name when a voice like a cannon bellowed out, "Now then! the yellow parlor!" and he was conducted into a room where a dazzling table was laid by a young man, with a Yankee goatee and whiskers, and the agility of a prestidigitateur.

This frisky person relieved Amedee at once of his hat and coat, and left him alone in the room, radiant with lighted candles.
Evidently it was to be a banquet.

Piled up in the centre of the table was a large dish of crayfish, and at each plate--there were five--were groups of large and small glasses.
Maurice came in almost immediately, accompanied by his other guests, three young men dressed in the latest fashion, whom Amedee did not at first recognize as his former comrades, who once wore wrinkled stockings and seedy coats, and wore out with him the seats of their trousers on the benches of the Lycee Henri IV.
After the greetings, "What! is it you ?" "Do you remember me ?" and a shaking of hands, they all seated themselves around the table.
What! is that little dumpy fellow with the turned-up nose, straight as an arrow and with such a satisfied air, Gorju, who wanted to be an actor?
He is one now, or nearly so, since he studies with Regnier at the Conservatoire.