"Is that why you pay five thousand francs for a shawl?"

"This will be my last folly."

"And you propose to lend Tobie five hundred francs?"

"I am so happy! I would like to be able to oblige all my friends."

"If I had suspected that," thought Celestin, "I would have invented a story to make him anxious to oblige me too.--Shall we dine together to-day?" he said aloud.

"It is impossible. I promised my father to dine with him. I have done it so seldom lately that he looks on it as a great favor, and he's too kind to me for me not to try to please him."

"You are becoming a model of filial respect!"

"Celestin," exclaimed Albert, in a very sharp tone, "I allow you to joke about whatever you choose, except my affection for my father; that is a sentiment which must be respected. It seems to me that it would be very unfortunate if there were nothing left in the world to respect."

"Oh! mon Dieu! don't lose your temper! I had no such purpose as you imagine. Until this evening! we shall expect you at the usual place."

It was not quite nine o'clock, but it had been dark for some time when the young men left Tortoni's cafe and bent their steps toward Place des Italiens. They had just started, when Mouillot said:

"One moment, messieurs! we have forgotten something. Here, take this."

And he gave each of his friends an olive.

"An olive!"

"What's this for?"

"Why, can't you guess? We are going to watch for Tobie, one at each corner of the square; and as soon as we see him, we will all descend on him, each presenting our olive and demanding five hundred francs."

"Very good! splendid!"

"Poor Tobie! This experience will be enough to disgust him with olives, and I'll bet that he won't stuff his pockets with them again when he dines out."

They soon reached Place des Italiens, where they separated, each going to one corner. They agreed that, when Tobie appeared, they would wait until he reached the middle of the square, and then advance upon him at the same time, so that the four olives, accompanied by as many demands for five hundred francs, might be presented simultaneously.

Five minutes pa.s.sed. Tobie did not appear. Five more minutes pa.s.sed. The young men coughed loudly from time to time, as if to a.s.sure one another that they were still there. To while away the time, Albert thought of Madame Baldimer, whom he was to call upon very soon. He enjoyed in antic.i.p.ation the pleasure he was about to afford her by presenting her with that shawl, which she coveted, and he hoped that his gallantry would be lovingly rewarded.

Celestin also thought about his relations with the lovely widow, saying to himself from time to time:

"Tobie will not come! he probably suspected something, or was afraid. We shall lose our olives."

Mouillot stamped impatiently, muttering:

"This is getting to be an infernal bore. I believe it's going to rain, too. The sell is on us, after all! Sacrebleu! messieurs! I say there! do you like this? For my part, I've had about enough."

Balivan was engrossed by the portrait of a woman which he was soon to begin, and he was wondering whether he would paint it against a dark or a light background, in a salon or in a garden.

Several more minutes pa.s.sed. A very fine rain began to fall. Albert, Celestin, and Mouillot were about to desert their posts, when shouts of: "Murder! police! help!" arose in the middle of the square.

The three young men ran toward the place from which the cries came, and found Balivan holding a short man by the arm.

"It's no use for you to yell," he was saying; "you owe me five hundred francs for this olive!"

"What in the devil are you doing, you fool?" cried Mouillot; "let the gentleman alone, will you! It isn't Tobie!"

The man whom Balivan had seized was a respectable bourgeois, who was loitering about in front of the Opera-Comique, intending to buy a check and see the last play.

Balivan confounded himself in apologies. But the bourgeois, who had had a horrible fright, continued to shout. The soldiers who were on guard at the theatre came up, with several policemen, and a crowd soon a.s.sembled.

The young men were surrounded, and the man whom Balivan had attacked pointed them out to the soldiers, saying in a voice rendered almost inaudible by terror:

"Arrest those four men. They're all thieves; they tried to rob me of five hundred francs, and I had only forty sous about me! This one threatened me; he tried to murder me with an olive. Arrest all four."

The young men tried to explain to the soldiers that it was all the result of a jest. But the officers took them away, saying:

"You may explain at the station."

"That miserable Tobie!" muttered Mouillot; "a nice mess he's got us into with his olives!"

"And my appointment!" thought Albert. "G.o.d grant they don't keep us long!"

"It is all Balivan's fault," said Celestin. "With his absent-mindedness, he was perfectly certain to make some blunder."

As for the young artist, he stalked along in the middle of the crowd, thinking:

"Yes, I will paint her with a country scene for a background."

XIX

THE QUARREL AND THE RECONCILIATION

On the day following that on which Elina had asked the messengers about Paul, he returned to his place with his _crochets_, wearing his jacket and cap; but his face was noticeably paler, his features more drawn, than before his prolonged absence.

The young messenger seated himself in his usual place, nodding to Sans-Cravate and Jean Ficelle, who were there before him. The former abruptly turned his head away when he saw Paul, and clenched his fists with an angry gesture; but Jean Ficelle, on the contrary, a.s.sumed his playful expression and walked to Paul's side.

"Hallo! hallo! here's the prodigal son back again! Yes, it's him, sure enough. Is it possible, Paul, that you've come back to sit alongside of us on a street corner? are you going to be a messenger?"

"I have never ceased to be one," replied Paul, looking earnestly at the house in which Elina worked.

"That's a good one! How about the time we met you dressed like a swell?

I don't think you was doing errands much just then! You was on a spree, you know, and it seems to have lasted a long while! Ten days of it! Gad!

that's a whole carnival, sure enough!"

"You are mistaken; I haven't been on a spree; you know perfectly well that it's not my custom."

"Not with us, that's true; but you play the n.o.bleman with your mistresses, it seems. Oh! I can understand that when a man's been doing the handsome thing by his girl for ten days, he don't feel inclined to treat his friends to a gla.s.s. And then, you have so many girls at once!