For a week he continued his daily promenades on Rue de Paradis-Poissonniere. On the eighth day, as he was going in the same direction, he remembered that it was just a year since he and his three friends had met at the cafe at the corner of the boulevard and Faubourg Poissonniere, and that they had all agreed to meet at the same place at the end of a year. So he changed his direction and went to the cafe, being curious to see whether his friends had remembered the appointment, and at the same time ready to seize any opportunity to obtain even momentary relief from his one haunting thought.

On entering the cafe, Adhemar spied Philemon Dubotte taking his ease with a gla.s.s of punch and a newspaper.

"Bravo!" cried Philemon, as they shook hands; "here are two men of their word! two men with a memory! I never doubted you, my dear fellow. How are you? You look a little pale. Didn't the air of London agree with you? I understand you have been in England?"

"Yes; the London air isn't very clear. It is composed in great part of smoke and fog; but it's not unhealthy, I believe, as the neighborhood of the sea drives away the noxious vapors."

"Did you make a lot of conquests over there? But of course you did."

"On the contrary, I kept clear of all intrigues."

"You astound me! I mean to go to England for the express purpose of finding out how the English women make love."

"Be careful! they take it more seriously than our French women do."

"Meanwhile, my dear Adhemar, you see before you the happiest man in Paris. I have arrived, my dear fellow, in every sense of the word. I am chief of a bureau--the position which was the one object of my ambition; and in my family relations I have nothing left to desire. My wife used to be perfectly killing with her affection; she would have liked to be hanging on my arm all the time; I have cured her of that nonsense, and now she lets me go out without her whenever I choose; sometimes, indeed, she is the first to suggest it. There's a young man who comes to the house to play cards with her, and who takes her to the theatre and to drive. I had great difficulty in accustoming her to it; but now the thing goes all alone, and she leaves me as much liberty as I can possibly desire. Well, Adhemar, what do you say? haven't I steered my ship pretty well? Why don't you congratulate me?"

Adhemar, who had smiled in rather an equivocal way while the handsome blond boasted of his good fortune, made haste to reply:

"You have reached your goal, my dear Dubotte, and, as you are satisfied, there is nothing for me to do but congratulate you."

"Gad! I should be hard to suit if I wasn't satisfied. And you must be, too, my dear fellow, for your success is uninterrupted, and you earn a lot of money."

"Happiness doesn't always depend on money alone."

"What about the other two fellows? have you any news of them?"

"No; I have been away from Paris, you know."

"Between ourselves, I am afraid poor Dodichet has turned out badly. He amused himself by perpetrating practical jokes that were much too dangerous, sometimes. I found him one day at poor old Mirotaine's, where he had brought a supposit.i.tious marrying man. I recognized the latter as a druggist from Pontoise, with a wife of his own. The result was confusion, disillusionment, revolution! That was a very poor joke."

"I heard about that. Yes, Dodichet wastes his whole life inventing such monkey tricks, which raise a laugh for the moment, but never have a beneficial result for the man who perpetrates them."

"I am sorry, for Dodichet is a good fellow at bottom."

"A good fellow! We think we have said everything, when we remark, in speaking of a man: 'He's a good fellow.'--For my part, I consider that that epithet is almost always applied to a person with whom it is advisable to avoid any intimate connection, for the good fellow is constantly doing idiotic things: he squanders his money like a fool, and, when it's all gone, thinks it the most natural thing in the world to borrow and never pay. He owes his tailor, his shoemaker, everybody he deals with. He never has a sou in his pocket; but if you ask him to join a party of any sort, he always accepts, and you have to pay for him.

Sometimes he will even invite you to dine at one of the best restaurants in Paris; he will entertain you magnificently, sparing neither truffles nor champagne; but when it comes to paying the bill, which may amount to forty francs, he will find only fifty sous in his purse and ask you to advance the rest. He will make an intimate friend of anybody he happens to meet, and sometimes finds himself playing billiards with sharpers, because he is so trustful that he calls people whose names he doesn't know his friends. He never keeps a promise; he constantly feeds on chimerical illusions, and flatters himself that he is going to win a million of money, when he hasn't a sou in his pocket. That's the kind of person a 'good fellow' is: frankly, I prefer a bad one."

As Adhemar finished, an individual, very shabbily dressed, his body encased in an old, greenish frock-coat, b.u.t.toned to the chin, with not a particle of linen in sight, with a shocking round hat, almost brimless, on his head, and patched and muddy old boots on his feet, entered the cafe with a very p.r.o.nounced limp, and halted in front of the two friends.

"Well, well!" he cried, "don't you know me? Here I am, faithful to our appointment of last year."

"Dodichet!" cried Dubotte and Adhemar in one breath.

"Yes, messieurs; Dodichet himself: slightly the worse for wear, and exceedingly hard up, as you see; but still ready to laugh when occasion offers!"

"But you are limping, aren't you?"

"Mon Dieu! yes, I am limping, and it's for life too; I shall always limp--it's the result of a fool's trick, an experiment, which I will tell you about directly. But make room for me at your table."

"With pleasure; will you have some grog, or beer?"

"Thanks; if it's all the same to you, I prefer a beefsteak."

"Waiter, a beefsteak for monsieur."

"With an endless supply of potatoes."

The beefsteak was brought; Dodichet consumed it, together with two loaves of bread and three carafes of water; it was evident that the poor fellow needed recruiting. His two old friends respected his appet.i.te, and asked no questions until he had finished.

"Messieurs," said Dodichet, "having been disinherited by my aunt, and that old fool of a Seringat having fallen into the water while running away from one of his friends who sang a song to him based on his conjugal misadventure, I had no choice but to decide upon some definite course of action. I told you a year ago that the stage was my vocation.

I still think so; but I must confess that I was not wildly applauded as a tenor--I smoked a little too much on the day of my debut; to cut it short, I was not fortunate at Quimper-Corentin. On my return to Paris, the dramatic agent, to whom I made known my desire to play Frederick Lemaitre's parts, told me to go at once to Carpentras, where the leading man had burst a blood vessel while chasing someone who owed him three francs fifty. So I went to Carpentras; I introduced myself to the manager with that self-a.s.surance to which I am subject. He welcomed me joyfully, and said to me: 'We want to give an extra performance to-morrow, for the benefit of wet-nurses with no children to nurse; I mean to give _Trente Ans, ou la Vie d'un Joueur_, and, to end the show, I have a young man from Pithiviers, who's as good at hair-raising leaps as Leotard. Can you play Frederick's part in _Trente Ans_?'--'I'll play it for you right away, if you want,' said I, with a laugh. 'Don't be alarmed; I have it at my finger tips.'--That wasn't quite true; but, as I had seen the play very often, I thought to myself: 'I know the entrances and exits; that's the main thing; when the lines escape me, I'll try pantomime, or else I'll think up something that will suit the situation.'--The manager was overjoyed; he announced his extra performance, as well as my debut, and that of a second Leotard. The critical moment arrived; the theatre was full, and the receipts fabulously large for that place. They began _Trente Ans_, and I didn't know a single line of the role of Georges.--Well! I played it like an angel! The townspeople, as they didn't know the play, had no suspicion that I was subst.i.tuting my own words for the author's; my fellow actors opened their eyes; but when they got confused, I pushed them so hard that they had to speak. In a word, the play came to an end amid tremendous applause; I was recalled, and acclaimed to the skies. The manager embraced me and told me that I was engaged. At that moment, a letter was handed him; it was from his acrobat, who told him that his father had summoned him to Pithiviers to help prepare an unusually large order of pies, and that he was going at once. My manager was in despair.

He had promised a performance on the trapeze, and the audience expected it; if he failed to give it, they would have the right to demand their money back, and he wouldn't have given it back for anything under heaven. Seeing the manager's embarra.s.sment, I asked him to show me what the acrobat was supposed to do. He was to run at full speed, jump through a hoop covered with paper, and come out on the other side high enough in the air to seize a rope which hung down a little beyond the hoop. 'Is that all?' I asked, with a scornful laugh; 'why, that's a mere _pons asinorum_! I do much more than that when I toy with gymnastics. Be calm; give me the tights, and I'll show you some jumping that will be quite equal to that of your Pithiviers tumbler!'--The manager leaped on my neck, informed me that he doubled my salary,--which did not compromise him much, as he had not as yet offered me anything,--then went and told the orchestra to play the Tartar March while I was dressing; after that, he would have an announcement to make to the audience. He went to the front of the stage, bowed, and announced that his acrobat had accidentally sprained a ligament, and that the artist who had just played the part of Georges would take his place. Everybody praised me to the skies. 'What a man!' they said; 'he takes Frederick's roles and Leotard's at the same time!'--Meanwhile, I was doing my utmost to get into the acrobat's flesh-colored tights. I had great difficulty, for they were terribly scant for my rotund form; however, I got into them at last. The three blows were struck; the orchestra played the triumphal march from _La Muette_ for me; I appeared, and was greeted with uproarious applause. To show my elasticity, I executed three handsprings before the audience; at the third, I tore my tights horribly, and showed them something besides my elasticity. However, that did not deter me; and the audience, thinking that I had another costume under my tights, and that I was making a lightning change in full view, applauded all the louder. That encouraged me, excited me! I ran onto the springboard, and jumped through the paper hoop; but, meaning to seize the rope as I came down, I jumped too high, and seized nothing but one of the wings, which came tumbling to the stage with me, and the fall dislocated my knee; that put an end to the performance.

"I must do the manager justice; I had hurt myself in order to oblige him, and he had my injury attended to; the surgeon went about it so skilfully that I shall limp all my life. Thus the theatrical career was closed to me, for you can't play Buridan or Kean with a limp. By way of compensation, the manager offered me the post of prompter. I accepted.

'Prompting isn't acting,' I thought. 'But as I can't act any more, I may as well prompt! it's a theatrical post; and although the audience doesn't see you, still you're a useful member of the cast, for you sometimes play all the parts.'--So I became prompter to the troupe; I was not discontented, for, after my accident, they gave a performance for my benefit, which was quite a success. I had pa.s.sed more than a month in that position, when--I may as well confess it--my fatal pa.s.sion for practical jokes attacked me with more violence than ever. We had a young fellow for the lovers' parts, who claimed that he had never made a mistake in his lines. One evening, when I was in rather a merry mood, our lover was on the stage with a princess with whom the plot required him to run away; and when she said to him, weeping bitterly: 'What are you going to do with me?' he looked at me and motioned to me to help him; so I whispered: 'Oh! how you tire me!'--and the poor devil made that reply to the princess. You can imagine the effect that produced; the audience laughed and yelled, and shouted _encore!_ and the actress who took the princess's part boxed her lover's ears, with a: 'Let that teach you not to say such things to me on the stage.'

"The _jeune premier_ succeeded, not without difficulty, in justifying himself; it was discovered that I was the only culprit, and the result was my dismissal. I returned to Paris, where I am reduced to the necessity of prompting in what used to be the suburbs.--That's my story, and this is what I have come to!"

"Pardieu! my poor Dodichet," said Dubotte, "it would seem as if this ought to have cured you, at last, of your mania for practical jokes."

"What would you have, n.o.ble Phbus? that seems to have been my real vocation. But here comes our fourth man. Bless my soul! he must have arrived; for he has a most radiant expression, and there's a great change in his dress as well as in his face."

In truth, Lucien Grischard, who had just entered the cafe, was no longer the poverty-stricken youth, in a threadbare coat, with traces of grief and privation on his pinched features. To-day, his eyes were bright, and the expression of his face announced the contentment of his mind; his costume, while not dandified, denoted that its owner was in comfortable circ.u.mstances; lastly, his face wore a cordial smile, as he shook hands with the three persons whom he joined, and who had already noted with pleasure the happy change that had taken place in him.

"Good-morning, messieurs, good-morning!" he said, with a joyous intonation in his voice. "I am the last to come, but you will forgive me when you know what has detained me."

"How are you, Lucien? This much we see already, with the greatest pleasure--that your position has changed for the better; for you seem perfectly content; we can read that in your face."

"And why should I not be, messieurs! I am going to marry the woman I love. In a week, Juliette will be my wife. Monsieur Mirotaine has consented at last to call me his son-in-law. My dearest wish is fulfilled."

"How did you succeed in gaining your end? Tell us about it."

"By hard work and perseverance; my pins were a success, and I was making money; I invented something else, so that I made still more, and I succeeded in extending my business. But how was I to let Monsieur Mirotaine know that, when he had forbidden me to go to his house? That was the difficulty; it was absolutely necessary that I should see Juliette, in order to tell her all that I was doing; it was necessary to have a definite understanding with her, and to give her precise details concerning my position and prospects, so that she could say to her father: 'You can go to this place and that place, and there you will learn where Lucien stands.'--Luckily, Juliette has a friend, who came to our a.s.sistance. This friend obtained permission quite often to take Juliette out with her, sometimes to bathe, sometimes to go shopping; but, as a matter of fact, the two ladies would meet me at the Jardin des Plantes; there I could arrange with Juliette what she was to say to her father about my position."

"At the Jardin des Plantes!" interposed Adhemar; "you say those ladies used to meet you there?"

"To be sure. And one day, when I had some very good news to tell Juliette,--I wanted to tell her that I had succeeded in a new business undertaking,--as she was not very well, her friend, Madame Dermont, was kind enough to come alone to our usual place of meeting. I told her that I had succeeded, and she lost no time in going to tell Juliette the good news; and it was then that Monsieur Mirotaine, convinced at last that we were not imposing on him and that I really was able to earn money, opened his house to me again, and consented to give me his daughter's hand."

Dubotte and Dodichet congratulated Lucien. But Adhemar did not say a word to him; for what he had just heard had produced such a revolution in his whole being, that he was like one turned to stone, and had not the strength to speak.

"Well!" said Dubotte, rising and taking his hat; "it is a satisfaction to me to know that we have all arrived at the goal we had in view. Poor Dodichet alone has steadily fallen lower and lower. Though, after all, it's his own fault! He shouldn't have prompted a lover to say: 'Oh! how you tire me!'--But, no matter; you know my address, Dodichet, don't you?

And when you are--cleaned out, come and dine with me; I always have a cover laid for an old friend who is in hard luck. Excuse me for leaving you, messieurs; but I must go and make sure that Calle can take my wife to the theatre to-night."

Dubotte having departed, Dodichet prepared to follow his example.

"No, indeed I wont go and dine with him!" he said. "If I should ever be too hard up, I wouldn't apply to him. There are some people whose benefactions are too heavy a load to carry. Au revoir, messieurs! I have eleven acts to prompt to-night, and I must go to my post--or my hole--it's the same thing. I sometimes am tempted to take a syringe with me and prompt with that. That would be a good joke. I think I'll wait till they play _Porceaugnac_."