Old men, like old clothes, need gentle handling.

I sat down at my table and began to write.
"What are you doing ?" asked the Vicomte, sharply.
"I am telegraphing to Madame de Clericy to return home." There was a silence in the room while I wrote out the message and despatched it by a servant.

The Vicomte made no attempt to stop me.
"Here," he said, when the door was closed--and he handed Giraud the key of his own study.

"The doctors and--the others--have placed him in my room--that is the key.

You must consider this house as your own until the funeral is over; your poor father's house, I know, is in disorder." Monsieur de Clericy would have it that the Baron should be buried from the Rue des Palmiers, which Alphonse Giraud recognised as in some sort an honour, for it proclaimed to the world the esteem in which the upstart nobleman was held in high quarters.
"I am glad," said my patron, with that air of fatherliness which he wore towards me from the first, "that you have telegraphed for my wife--the house is different when she is in it.