"That's the very thing. You have noticed it, then?"
"My dear Planchet, you must understand that when people see each other every day, and one of the two absents himself, the other misses him. Do not you feel the want of my society when I am in the country?"
"Prodigiously; that is to say, I feel like a body without a soul."
"That being understood, then, let us go on."
"What are the periods when I absent myself?"
"On the fifteenth and thirtieth of every month."
"And I remain away?"
"Sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes four days at a time."
"Have you ever given it a thought, what I have been absent for?"
"To look after your debts, I suppose."