Thus Maitre Jacquemin Lampourde managed to gratify three of the five senses man is blessed with by means of a single glass of wine.

He pretended that the other two might also have a share of the enjoyment--that of touch by the highly polished surface and swelling curves of the wine-glass, and that of hearing by the merry ringing when two glasses are clinked together, or by the musical sounds to be brought forth from a glass by drawing the moistened finger round and round the edge of it.

But these are fantastic and paradoxical ideas, which only serve to show the vicious refinement of this fastidious ruffian.

He had been but a few minutes alone when an odd-looking, shabbily dressed individual came in, who rejoiced in a remarkably pale face, which looked as if it had been chalked, and a nose as red and fiery as a live coal; the idea of how many casks of wine and bottles of brandy must have been imbibed to bring it to such an intensity of erubescence would be enough to terrify the ordinary drinker.

This singular countenance was like a cheese, with a bright, red cherry stuck in the middle of it; and to finish the portrait it would only be necessary to add two apple seeds, placed a little obliquely, for the eyes, and a wide gash for a mouth.
Such was Malartic--the intimate friend, the Pylades, the Euryalus, the "fidus Achates" of Jacquemin Lampourde; who certainly was not handsome--but his mental and moral qualities made up for his little physical disadvantages.