But who thinks of death at his age?
Gustave wishes to know life, and when a fit of coughing interrupts him in one of his idiotic bursts of laughter, his comrades at the Gateux Club tell him that he has swallowed the wrong way.

Wretched Gustave, so be it! Meanwhile the boy with the juggler's motions appeared with the soup, and made exactly the same gestures when he uncovered the tureen as Robert Houdin would have made, and one was surprised not to see a bunch of flowers or a live rabbit fly out.

But no! it was simply soup, and the guests attacked it vigorously and in silence.

After the Rhine wine all tongues were unloosened, and as soon as they had eaten the Normandy sole-oh! what glorious appetites at twenty years of age!--the five young men all talked at once.

What a racket! Exclamations crossed one another like rockets.