"Tell the cashier,"
he cried, "that I am Monsieur Honore de Balzac." And he stalked out
with Werdet, whilst all the diners present stared admiringly after the
great man.
But the evening was not yet finished. In the garden of the Palais-Royal,
then more frequented by society than to-day, they met Jules Sandeau
and Emile Regnault. And, as they were near a gambling-saloon, Balzac,
who had an infallible system for breaking the bank, proposed to Jules
that he should go and try his luck. A twenty-franc piece was wheedled
out of Werdet for the experiment, which proved a fiasco. Next, the
novelist, to convince his companions of the accuracy of his theory,
which he further detailed, went and borrowed forty francs from his
heraldic engraver, and sent Sandeau and Regnault into the saloon
again. Alas! fate was once more unkind. They returned minus their
money. To console themselves, they went to the Funambules Theatre, to
see Debureau act in the _Boeuf Enrage_, and Balzac laughed so loud
that he and his party had to leave the theatre. On the morrow Werdet
was called upon to pay the restaurant-keeper sixty-two francs, and to
reimburse the engraver the forty francs loan, which sums, together
with what he had himself advanced, ran Balzac's debit for the day up
to one hundred and twenty-seven francs.
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