“Why, have you come from China? not to know old Veto?”
“What do you want? I am obliged to stick to my trade, and that is not politics.”
“You are blamed lucky! I have to mix up with these high folk—more’s the pity! or rather, they force me to mix with them. It will be my ruin.” He sighed as he looked up to heaven.
“Pshaw! were you called to Paris again to do another piece of work in the style of that other one?” asked the friend.
“But this time I was not blindfolded but taken with my eyes open.”
“So that you knew it was the Tuileries this time?”
“The Tuileries? who said anything about the Tuileries?”
“Why, you, of course, just now. How would I know where you had been carousing had you not told me?”
“That is true,” muttered Gamain to himself; “how should he, unless I told him? Perhaps,” he said aloud, “I was wrong to let you know; but you are not like the rest. Besides I am not going to deny that I was at the Tuileries.”
“And you did some work for the King, for which he gave you twenty five louis,” went on the other.