"Then what have you to say?"
"We wished to know, my dear friend, if it was you up here."
"Well, monsieur, now you know it, leave me in peace."
"Cap de Bious! have you become a hermit?"
"As for that, monsieur, permit me to leave you in doubt."
"Ah! bah!" cried St. Maline, trying to enter, "are you really alone? you have no light."
"Gentlemen!" said Ernanton, "I know that you are half drunk, and I forgive you; but there is a limit even to the patience that one owes to men beside themselves; your joke is over, do me the favor to retire."
"Oh! oh! retire! how you speak!" said St. Maline.
"I speak so as you may not be deceived in my wishes, and I repeat, gentlemen, retire, I beg."
"Not before we have been admitted to the honor of saluting the person for whom you desert our company. M. de Montcrabeau," continued he, "go down and come back with a light."