“They call me Citizen Thibaut.”
“Citizen Thibaut, I drink to our better acquaintance. This Médoc—I have not grudged it you in former years. Your refined appreciation of it has many a time glorified to me my supper of stale fragments. But for you, maybe, I had not learned the secret of its fragrance. To my past master in epicurism I gulp a grateful toast.”
He was as good as his word.
“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “where do you live?”
“Rue de Jouy, St Antoine,” he answered.
“I seek a convenient landlord. Will you accommodate me?”
“With all my heart.”
I heard the vieillard at the next table gobble and choke. I turned my head to look, sprang to my feet, and my glass crashed on the boards.
In that instant the room had leaped into uproar—for something immediate, swift, and terrible had happened. It was this:
The fast-eating man at the table opposite, having finished his dinner, was risen to pay his bill. He stood with impatient hand outstretched as Février fumbled in his pocket for the change; and at the moment a fellow, thick-set, stubble-bearded, dressed in a blouse and faded cloak, strode up the room and paused by him.