Monsieur Varinet drew his purse and showed them the olive among some gold pieces; it had dried and had shrunk considerably.

"If you keep the thing much longer," said Balivan, "you'll have nothing left but the stone."

"Do you know Tobie's address, messieurs?" asked Albert.

"No," replied the painter; "if I knew it, I should have gone there before this to remind him of his fetich, which he has not redeemed. As it was at my rooms that he contracted that debt to Monsieur Varinet, whom he had never seen but once before, I consider it infernally ill-bred in him not to have paid up at once."

"Oh! I am not at all alarmed," said Varinet, calmly.

"But I must see this little Tobie," said Albert; "and I will not fail to remind him of his debt; for it would be exceedingly unpleasant for us to have Monsieur Varinet fall a victim to his confidence in a person whom he had reason to look upon as a friend of ours."

"What's all this? what friends are you talking about?" said the jovial Mouillot, as he joined the four young men and shook hands with them. "I have just seen Dupetrain talking with a lady on Rue de Richelieu, messieurs; he had her backed up against a porte cochere, and, in my opinion, he was trying to magnetize her on the carriage stone."

"Ah! it's Mouillot!"

"How much did you win at bouillotte the night before last, Mouillot?"

"Six hundred and twenty francs; that's all."

"What a lucky dog he is! he always wins."

"Do you know Tobie's address, Mouillot?"

"Tobie's address? how should I know it? he never asks one to come and see him. When he invites his friends to breakfast, the mice will dance the cancan! By the way, has he redeemed his fetich?"

"No; Varinet hasn't seen him."

"Poor Varinet! that olive must be a little stale."

"So you don't know Monsieur Pigeonnier's address?"

"Not I."

"The first time that I had the honor of seeing the gentleman," said Varinet, swallowing a gla.s.s of water, "he told me that he was a commission merchant. If that is so, his name and address ought to be in the directory."

The other young men laughed heartily at Varinet's suggestion.

"Ha! ha! commission merchant!"

"That kind is never in the directory!"

"I'm not sure even that he's an unlicensed broker."[J]

"It's so easy in Paris to pretend to be what you are not!"

"There are many people who go so far as to a.s.sume names that don't belong to them."

"And who often succeed in making dupes, under the shelter of an honorable name."

"What is there that is never stolen in Paris?"

Meanwhile, Monsieur Varinet, desiring to satisfy his mind on the subject, sent the waiter for a business directory; they consulted the bulky volume, but they sought in vain the name of Tobie Pigeonnier, and the tall young man with white eyebrows began to frown as he looked at his olive.

"Listen, messieurs," said Albert; "we must not allow Monsieur Varinet to fall a victim to his confidence in a person to whom he was introduced by us. I don't say that Tobie intends to deny his debt, nor do I think so; but, lest he forget it, I make this proposition--that we beat up Monsieur Pigeonnier, we four, who know the city pretty well. I will take the Chaussee d'Antin, the Faubourg Saint-Honore, and the Champs-elysees."

"I, the Marais and the Palais-Royal quarter," said Balivan.

"I will look out for the Faubourg Saint-Germain and the boulevards,"

said Celestin.

"And I," cried Mouillot, "I go everywhere, in all directions, and I will take care of the rest. The first one who sees Tobie must capture him and take him to Varinet's house, or bring him here: this will be our general rendezvous. We will come here every morning to report the result of our search."

"Agreed; we will go Tobie-hunting."

"Tobie-hunting it is! Tally-ho!"

"But one suggestion, messieurs," said Mouillot; "I don't see why this hunt should interfere with our hunting grisettes also. How about your little neighbor, Balivan? She is really charming, do you know? What are you doing with her?"

"Oh! I a.s.sure you, messieurs, that young woman is very virtuous, and I don't advise you to think about her--it will be time thrown away."

"Virtuous!" repeated Celestin, with a shrug; "I thought you knew more than that about the s.e.x, my dear artist! We found your little virtue in a dark loft, with a young rascal, who was holding her very tight--and for whom I have a rod in pickle; but he wasn't in his usual place this morning."

"Nonsense," said Albert; "you don't propose to fight with a messenger, I trust! and, after all, if he is her lover, he was quite right to defend the girl."

"Oho! here's Albert taking up the cudgels for the dressmaker! it's highly edifying.--I propose a wager, Mouillot: fifteen napoleons that I triumph first over that timid virtue."

"Done! I take the bet.--Are you in it, Albert?"

"No."

"Albert is too busily occupied elsewhere," said Celestin, in a mocking tone; "and, besides that, don't you see that he has set himself up as the defender of grisettes?"

"Messieurs," interposed Balivan, "I a.s.sure you that neither one of you will win. My neighbor won't listen to you."

"You'll see whether she will or not, artist. I will be persistent, I tell you; not so much on account of the girl, as to be revenged on that cur who played the insolent with us. He does our errands, and he dares to talk back to us! upon my word, it is sickening!"

The young men had left the cafe and were about to separate, when Bastringuette pa.s.sed them on the boulevard, with her flowers.

"There's Bastringuette!" exclaimed Albert; "parbleu! she is always out of doors--she must help us in our hunt for Tobie."

"True, she can act as beater," said Mouillot.

The young men walked toward the flower girl, and halted in front of her.

Bastringuette looked up at them.

"Mon Dieu!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "what a bunch of customers to fall on me all at once! What luck for me! for I haven't sold anything to-day. Buy my flowers, messieurs; I have something to put in your b.u.t.tonholes."

"Bastringuette," said Albert, "do you remember the young man who was with us the day before yesterday on the boulevard? the one who thrust his nose into all your bouquets to smell them better?"