A few days later, Cherami was, in fact, able to go out, and without a bandage; his eye had resumed its normal appearance. Our man had taken great pains with his toilet: his boots were polished, his hat and coat carefully brushed; he took his switch, entered the omnibus from Belleville, took an exchange check, and, in due time, arrived at the banker's establishment in Faubourg Montmartre.

On this occasion, Cherami did not stop to talk with the concierge; he went straight to the office and found the same clerk still at work on his figures. It is a fact that there are some clerks in banking-houses who pa.s.s almost the whole day at that work. When they go to sleep, it would seem that they must always see figures dancing and fluttering about them; what a pleasant life! and what delightful dreams!

Cherami stopped in front of the old clerk, who kept his eyes fixed on his ledger as before, making the same dull sound that some machines make: "Six--eight--fourteen--twenty-seven--thirty."

"I say, my good man, haven't you stopped that since the last time I came?" cried Cherami, tapping on the clerk's desk with his switch.

"Sapristi! you're no common clerk; you're a living logarithm, a ciphering-machine on which somebody ought to take out a patent! You ought to fetch a big price."

The old clerk replied simply, without raising his head:

"Don't hit my ledger like that; don't you see that you raise the dust?"

"Yes, to be sure, I see that I raise lots of dust; your office-boys don't dust here every day, it seems?"

"Thirty-five--forty-four--fifty-three."

"Ah! the machine's starting up again. Look you: I would be glad to avoid applying to your employer, Monsieur Grandcourt, as we're not on the best of terms. Come, Papa Double-Naught, tell me if the banker's nephew, Gustave, has returned from Germany. I have something to say to him--something important, very important; I am anxious to a.s.sure his happiness! Well?"

"Eighty from a hundred and sixty leaves----"

"Ah! this is too much! it pa.s.ses conception! He ought to be sent to the Exposition!"

Having brought his switch down on the desk once more, with such violence that the sand and ink flew up into the clerk's face, Cherami strode toward the banker's private office, and found that gentleman reading the newspaper.

At sight of Cherami, whom he recognized at once, although his apparel was greatly improved, Monsieur Grandcourt frowned. His visitor, on the contrary, tried to smile, and said, bowing gracefully:

"Monsieur, I have the honor to be your servant."

"Good-morning, monsieur!"

"Do you remember me, by any chance?"

"Perfectly, monsieur. Indeed, you are not at all changed, except in respect to your dress, which I congratulate you upon having renewed."

"Ah! you notice that? You look at a man's dress, I see?"

"Why, I should say that it was impossible not to notice it."

"I mean to say that you attach importance to it, that you judge the man by his coat."

"Was it to ascertain my opinion on that subject that you called on me, monsieur?"

"No; oh, no! I snap my fingers at other people's opinions. I know my own value, and that's enough for me."

"I congratulate you, monsieur, on knowing your own value; it is quite possible that the world at large doesn't suspect it."

Cherami bit his lips and twisted his whiskers, muttering:

"This devil of a fellow hasn't changed, either--still sarcastic, mocking. I don't despise intellects of that type; they p.r.i.c.k and stir one up. You retort, and the conversation is all the more highly spiced."

Monsieur Grandcourt repressed a faint smile and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs, as if waiting to hear what his caller had to say.

"I would be willing to bet that you guess why I have come?" said Cherami at last.

"It is quite possible, monsieur; still, I may be mistaken."

"I have come to ask where your dear nephew is--my friend Gustave."

"He is travelling, monsieur."

"Still travelling? But, he must be somewhere."

"He was at Berlin not long ago."

"Not long ago--that's rather vague. However, he writes to you, and you answer him, I presume?"

"There is no doubt about that."

"Consequently, he tells you where to send your letters. Very good! be kind enough to give me his address, so that I may write to Gustave forthwith. I desire to tell him a piece of news which will make him very happy, and will probably hasten his return to Paris. When one can give a friend pleasure, it would seem that one cannot do it too quickly! Don't you agree with me in that?"

"Perhaps, monsieur; that depends on the possible results of the pleasure which you wish to afford your friend. What is this joyous news which you are in such haste to transmit to my nephew, so as to make him hurry back? Couldn't you tell me?"

"I might say that you are very inquisitive; but you are my friend's uncle, and, for that reason, I excuse you. The little woman whom Gustave adored, whom he still adores--at least, he told me so before he went away--that charming f.a.n.n.y!--and she really is very pretty! I had a chance to examine her at my ease when I called on her--a refined, intellectual face, a coaxing voice, a foot just large enough to say that she has one----"

"Well, monsieur, this f.a.n.n.y?"

"Well, dear uncle, she is a widow!"

"Oh! monsieur, I have known that a long while. She's a widow because her husband blew his brains out, which doesn't indicate that he was very happy at home."

"I beg your pardon; he killed himself because he was ruined--by unlucky speculations on the Bourse. Still, I am not talking about the dead man, but about his widow. Since the woman Gustave adored is free, what is there to prevent him, later--I don't say now, at once, but when her year of mourning has pa.s.sed----"

"So, monsieur, it is with the purpose of reviving that idiotic pa.s.sion of my nephew for a woman who laughed at him, that you insist upon knowing where he is? You hope that on receipt of your letter he will drop everything and return to Paris?"

"I am even capable of going where he is, myself, to fetch him home, if it isn't too far--and doesn't cost too much! I will travel third cla.s.s; I don't mind. One must make some sacrifice to friendship."

"You will not have that trouble, monsieur; and as I consider that my nephew will certainly return soon enough, so far as seeing your f.a.n.n.y is concerned, and as I flatter myself that he will then have ceased to think of that young woman, I shall not give you his address."

"Ah! indeed! so you are still as hard-hearted and tyrannical as ever?"

"A man is not necessarily a tyrant, monsieur, because he prevents silly boys from making fools of themselves. I am well aware that, nowadays, it is customary to give that name to those who insist that laws and customs and individual rights shall be respected; that old age shall be honored, that children shall revere their parents and celebrate their birthdays, and that there shall be no smoking in a room where there are ladies; if that's what you mean by _tyrant_, why, I am a tyrant, monsieur, and I am proud of it."

Cherami paced up and down the room, muttering:

"You are trying to make me think it's noon at two o'clock! I care nothing for all that! Once, twice, will you give me Gustave's address?"

"A hundred times, no!"