Anything and everything serves to keep up a game of battledore
and shuttlecock with words and ideas. The diorama, a recent invention,
which carried an optical illusion a degree further than panoramas, had
given rise to a mania among art students for ending every word with
_rama_. The Maison Vauquer had caught the infection from a young artist
among the boarders.
"Well, Monsieur-r-r Poiret," said the _employe_ from the Museum, "how
is your health-orama?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned
to Mme. Couture and Victorine with a "Ladies, you seem melancholy."
"Is dinner ready?" cried Horace Bianchon, a medical student, and a
friend of Rastignac's; "my stomach is sinking _usque ad talones_."
"There is an uncommon _frozerama_ outside," said Vautrin. "Make room
there, Father Goriot! Confound it, your foot covers the whole front of
the stove."
"Illustrious M. Vautrin," put in Bianchon, "why do you say
_frozerama_? It is incorrect; it should be _frozenrama_."
"No, it shouldn't," said the official from the Museum; "_frozerama_ is
right by the same rule that you say 'My feet are _froze_.'"
"Ah! ah!"
"Here is his Excellency the Marquis de Rastignac, Doctor of the Law of
Contraries," cried Bianchon, seizing Eugene by the throat, and almost
throttling him.
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