At five-and-twenty a night of wearisome and broken sleep makes small difference to the spirits, and when he had washed as well as he could by the aid of a cream-jug full of water and a saucer, and a towel handkerchief, and without the aid of soap, he dressed, and sallied out with the intent to lose himself in Paris. There is nothing so exhilarating as the first sight of a foreign city, and Paul wandered on and on, past the Palace of Justice and over the bridge, and, turning to the left, made along the Rue de Rivoli, passed the far-stretching façade of the Louvre, and so went on till he reached the Place de la Concorde. There, staring into the basin of one of the fountains, as if he had been waiting for Paul to come to him, was Darco, fur-coated and silk-hatted as of yore, and looking neither older nor younger by a day than when they had parted.
‘Darco!’ said Paul, with his heart in his mouth. ‘How glad I am! You dear old Darco!’
Darco stared a moment, for the young man’s beard and moustache were fully grown, and they disguised him.
‘Oh!’ he said at last. ‘Id is Armstronk. How do you do?’ He held out his hand somewhat laxly, but Paul took it in both his and wrung it fervently.
‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. I can’t tell you how bitterly sorry I’ve been for the brutal way in which I paid you for all your kindness. Try and forgive me, old chap. Do now. It wasn’t ingratitude, Darco, though it looked like it It was a boy’s infatuation for a woman.’
‘I dold you,’ said Darco—’ I rememper as if it was yesterday. I said: “You are a tarn fool, and you will be zorry.”’
‘I have been sorry this five years or nearly,’ said Paul, still clinging to his hand. ‘Make it up, old chap, and come and have lunch somewhere.’
‘Zo pe id,’ said Darco, stolid as an ox. ‘Do you vant a virst-glass restaurant, or a second-glass, or vat?’
‘The best in Paris!’ cried Paul gaily, though he had to blow his nose and to cry ‘Hem!’ to clear his throat, the sight, of old Darco touched his heart so.
‘Gome along, then,’ said Darco, and rolled off sturdily like a barrel on barrels in the direction of the Boulevards. ‘Rue Gasdilione,’ he said, playing guide as he walked along. ‘Blace Fendôme. Golumn Fendôme. Rue de la Baix. You haf not been in Baris until now?