"Certainly, if he wins it of me at billiards;" and I jingled my fifty francs.
I turned to Gondon.
"Come and see what happens," I said to him.
"You go on; I will rejoin you.... At Camberlin's, is it not?"
"At Camberlin's."
Camberlin was the traditional coffee-house; since the discovery of coffee and the invention of billiards, the Camberlins had sold coffee and kept a billiard-table, from father to son.
It was to Camberlin's my grandfather used to go every evening to take a hand at dominoes or piquet, until his little bitch Charmante came scratching at the door, with two lanterns held in her jaws. It was at Camberlin's my father and M. Deviolaine came to challenge each other's skill at play, as, on another green carpet, they challenged each other's skill at the chase. It was at Camberlin's, finally, that, thanks to my antecedents, I had been able, almost gratis, when I lost, to begin my education as an elder Philibert under three different masters, who had ended by seeing me a better player than they were. These three masters were—Cartier, against whom I was going to wipe out an old score; Camusat, Hiraux's nephew, who reclothed his uncle at la Râpée, when they turned him out of Villers-Cotterets in drawers and shirt; and a delightful youth, called Gaillard, who was a first-class player in all sorts of games, and who had, to my great satisfaction, replaced M. Miaud, my old rival, at the work-house. So I had become a much better player than Cartier; but, as he would never admit it, he invariably declined the six points I as invariably offered him before we began the match. Just as we were trying our cues on the billiard-table, Gondon entered.
"What will you take, Gondon?" Cartier asked. "Dumas is paying."
"I will take absinthe; I want to enjoy my dinner well to-day."