"Good! I agree!" cried Albert; "especially as I have had hard luck lately at bouillotte. That Mouillot is a lucky devil; he always wins, and he owes me a terrible revenge.--Well, Tobie, doesn't the plan suit you? You often say: 'We must dine together, and have a little spree;'

but when we try to fix a day, you never can. Here is a good chance, it seems to me. My dear fellow, if you want to succeed with Madame Plays, I warn you that you must act a little cavalierly."

Tobie seemed to hesitate for a moment, but at last he struck the ground with his cane and cried:

"Well, I accept! yes, let us dine together, and make the day complete!

feasting! cards! women! that's my idea of life! Ah! what libertines we are!"

"Now, messieurs," said Albert, "we will step into the cafe on Pa.s.sage de l'Opera, and I will write the note for Madame Plays; and I have another letter to write and send off before dinner."

"And so have I," said Celestin.

"And I," said Tobie; "I have an important errand to be done."

"Let us go, then."

The three young men entered the cafe at the corner of the boulevard and the Pa.s.sage de l'Opera, and ordered writing materials, together with three gla.s.ses of madeira. Each of the three wrote very busily. Albert let his pen run over the paper, but it seemed not to travel fast enough to express the thoughts which thronged the mind of him who guided it.

Monsieur Celestin de Valnoir wrote more slowly, but, from the expression of his face, it was evident that he was carefully considering his words. As for Tobie Pigeonnier, he wrote the least rapidly of the three, either because his ideas did not come readily, or because his subject was a difficult one to treat; he scratched his forehead, looked up at the ceiling, wrote two words, stopped, ran his hand through his hair, and began again; his letter caused him much toil, but he did not confine himself to a single one; after sealing the first, he at once began another. Albert and Celestin, who had finished theirs long before, said to him:

"Well, Pigeonnier, how many letters are you writing? will this be a long one?"

"One moment, messieurs; let me finish this one, I beg; it is very important. You see, in order to dine with you, I have to miss two most seductive appointments. The poor little women! they will be in despair, but, at all events, I shall not keep them waiting for me in the cold.

Just a word of love, and I shall have finished."

"Parbleu! that's not hard to find. Put _yours for life_, and let it go at that."

"That is too common; I am going to write something different."

Monsieur Tobie finished his correspondence at last. Albert paid the waiter, and the three young men rose and left the cafe.

"The next thing is to send my letters," said Tobie.

"Oh! I have my regular messenger--Sans-Cravate," said Albert; "he is always at the corner of Rue du Helder, close by; let us go there."

"For my part," said Celestin, "I employ his comrade, Jean Ficelle; he's a very intelligent fellow. There's a third one, whose name is Paul, I think, who stands with them; he will do Tobie's errand."

"All right, messieurs," said Pigeonnier. "Let us go and find our messengers. By the way--how about my letter for the fair Herminie?"

"Faith! I forgot to write it; but we have time enough, I'll write it at the restaurant; we must hurry, it's five o'clock now."

III

THE MESSENGERS

On Rue du Helder, near the boulevard, in front of a handsome house, three street messengers had their regular stand.

On the afternoon of which we are writing, all three were at their post.

One lay at full length on his _crochets_, which he had placed on the ground, horizontally, in such wise as to form a sort of cot-bed; it was rather narrow, but its occupant had become so accustomed to it that he had no difficulty in maintaining his place, and never fell over the side.

Another was sitting on a stone bench against the house. He was smoking a pipe, and had in his hands a disgustingly greasy and dirty pack of cards, with which he was apparently practising the false cut and divers other tricks of that sort.

The third messenger was on his feet, leaning against the wall, with his eyes fixed on the topmost floor of a high building almost opposite.

The man lying on the _crochets_ seemed to be in the prime of life; he was of medium height, but the breadth of his shoulders and the size of the muscles in his sinewy limbs pointed him out as a man with whom it would be dangerous to quarrel. His face was frank and good-humored; his small, light blue eyes expressed recklessness and merriment; his nose was rather large, and sometimes red at the end; his full lips denoted a kindly and obliging disposition; and his abundant light hair, which blew about at the pleasure of the wind, surmounted a high forehead, wherein the brain must have had ample room to exercise its faculties.

He was dressed like most messengers,--a jacket and loose trousers; but he wore no neckerchief; his shirt, fastened by a b.u.t.ton, disclosed a neck much whiter than one would have supposed from the color of his hands and face. The invariable habit of wearing nothing about his neck at any season of the year, even when the cold was most severe, was responsible for the sobriquet of _Sans-Cravate_, which had come to be the only name by which the messenger was known to the persons who employed him, and even to most of his friends.

The person seated on the stone bench, who seemed intent upon his cards, was short, and heavily pock-marked; his hair was dark brown and very thick, and hung low over a narrow forehead; the man's face indicated intelligence and cunning, and the evil expression of his gray eyes seemed to forbid the judgment we are accustomed to form of a person with a low forehead. A small nose, much too retrousse, tightly closed lips, and a protruding chin, made of Monsieur Jean Ficelle a decidedly ugly individual, and one who would by no means inspire the confidence which we like to feel in a messenger, unless his unusual mobility of feature were successful in deceiving those who tried to read his thoughts.

The third messenger, who stood against the wall, with his eyes constantly fixed on the attics of the opposite house, was a tall, slender young man of graceful figure; although he also wore loose trousers and a jacket, there was in his bearing an indefinable something, which, while perhaps it could not be called refinement, distinguished it from the vulgar slouchiness of his companions; and as, generally speaking, a person's face almost always fulfils the promise of his bearing, so this young man, whose features were regular and attractive, had not the usual expression of those of his calling. A high, well-shaped forehead; beautiful black hair, brushed aside with a lack of coquetry that was not without charm; brown eyes, with a tender and melancholy expression; a mouth of an ordinary type, supplied with handsome teeth; an oval face, almost always pale, but indicative of a delicate const.i.tution rather than of ill health--such was that one of the three messengers who was known as Paul, and who, in truth, seemed but ill adapted for his trade.

"If Bastringuette hasn't sold her violets, I shall have a chance to sup in my mind's eye to-day. Business is dull, but the appet.i.te keeps right along. _Credie!_ what a lot of rooms there are to let in my belly! and unfurnished lodgings in my stomach! How the devil am I to furnish it all?

"'Dip your bread, Marie, dip your bread, Dip your bread in clear water!'

We'll sing that song for our supper, and we shan't be troubled with indigestion. But Bastringuette don't like that tune--nor do I, for that matter."

It was Sans-Cravate who made these reflections aloud, as he turned over on his _crochets_. After a moment's silence, he continued:

"If a fellow hadn't his cutty to comfort him when his pocket's empty, how he would curse his destiny! Bah! what's the odds! Am I going to have an attack of the dismals? am I going to join the ranks of the snivellers? Never! It don't bring in a sou to be sad; and then, as another song says, which I like much better:

"'Courage! courage!

One's friends are always by!'

"Isn't that so, boys? Well! don't all answer at once; I shouldn't know you if you did."

As he spoke, Sans-Cravate turned and looked at his comrades. He shrugged his shoulders when he saw Jean Ficelle playing with his cards, and muttered:

"The deuce! there's Jean Ficelle practising his tricks! Cards are his vocation. But d.a.m.n me if I ever play piquet with you again! Infernal Ficelle![A] you are too well named."

The person addressed paid no attention, he was so engrossed by his cards. Thereupon Sans-Cravate turned to Paul and said, with a smile:

"Ah! this is a bird of another color. 'Tis love, love, love, that makes the world go round! And here's a young spark as has laid in a good stock of it. Well, Paul, even if you give yourself a stiff neck standing like that, with your head in the air, you won't succeed in opening the windows on the fourth floor, if Mademoiselle Dumanchon, the dressmaker, wants 'em to stay shut. Mademoiselle Dumanchon don't let her girls go out to walk the streets; indeed, she has plenty of work, because, they say, she knows her business. She makes dresses that give a bust to women without any, and that hide the hips of those who have too much. That's genuine talent! I am surprised that she lives on the fourth floor; to be sure, lodgings in this quarter are pretty high.--Come, Paul, tell me, haven't you seen your little girl to-day?"

The young messenger who was looking in the air turned to Sans-Cravate and replied:

"My little girl? What do you mean? I don't understand you."

"Oh, well! if we're going to play the stupid, if we have secrets from our friends--that's a different matter, and you'd better say so. Do you suppose I don't know that you're in love with one of the dressmaker's apprentices, a pretty little thing named Elina, who takes short, quick steps when she pa.s.ses us, which doesn't prevent her casting a sly glance in your direction?"

"Really, Sans-Cravate! do you think she looks at me when she pa.s.ses?"

"You don't see her yourself, I suppose, you fox?"

"Oh! I a.s.sure you, Sans-Cravate, that I have never said a word to that young woman which could make her suspect that I dare to think of her. I think her very pretty, that is true; and then, she is so pleasant and so courteous when she gives me an errand to do! There are so many people who treat us messengers as if we were brutes or savages!"