110 APPENDIX. 



mashed potatoes. He brought it to me and at once I 

 began to put half of my beef in my loaf of bread for 

 my dinner, as it was the custom then, it cost less to 

 buy it from the baker than from the restaurant, then 

 I began to eat the balance left. "When my comrade, 

 who stood opposite me, rose from his chair, crossed 

 his arms over his breast and thrust in my face these 

 " flowers of rhetoric " (we were florists and of course 

 that was one of our weapons): " D . . . . savage ! double 

 brute! ! have you been brought up with wild leasts ! 

 in the woods where you ought to be and not among 

 civilised f people //.... to eat meat on such day !!.... 

 After that complimentary apostrophe, allocution as you 

 please, the utterance of which seemed to have exhausted 

 all his faculties, he could hardly draw his breath, he 

 was panting f and I was suffocating f with rage, with 

 all the most violent passions in a human body. At 

 that minute, that second, from a roaring in the room 

 you could have heard the flying of an atom, a silence 

 like in a tomb ! So spontaneous had been the frantic 

 allocution, every one was surprised and I was petrified ! 

 as to say. If at that time the terrestrial globe had 

 had a handle through it and I could have handled it 

 as my spade I would have rolled it over all in exist- 

 ence, crushing to dust every thing, then you would 

 have had a cause to say to-day " dust to dust ! But I 

 don't think I said any thing at all, unless internally 



