Guillaume looked at him, concealing his extreme curiosity with an incredulous laugh.
'I'm telling you the truth,' continued the drunkard. 'The paper's here in my pocket. Can't you feel it?'
'Oh, it's only a newspaper!' said Guillaume.
At this, Trouche sniggered, and drew a large envelope from the pocket of his overcoat, and laid it on the table amidst the cups and glasses. For a moment, though Guillaume had reached out his hand, he prevented him from taking it, but then he allowed him to have it, laughing loudly the while. The paper proved to be a most detailed statement by Doctor Porquier with respect to the mental condition of François Mouret, householder, of Plassans.
'Are they going to shut him up, then?' asked Guillaume, handing back the paper.
'That's no business of yours, my boy,' replied Trouche, who had now become distrustful again. 'This paper here is for his wife. I am merely a friend who is glad to do a service. She will act as she pleases. However, she can't go on letting herself be half murdered, poor lady!'
By the time they were turned out of the café he was so drunk that Guillaume had to accompany him to the Rue Balande. He wanted to lie down and go to sleep on every seat on the Cours Sauvaire. When they reached the Place of the Sub-Prefecture, he began to shed tears and stutter:
'I've no friends now; everyone despises me just because I'm poor. But you are a good-hearted young fellow, and you shall come and have coffee with us when we get into possession. If the Abbé interferes with us, we'll send him to keep the other one company. He isn't very sharp, the Abbé, in spite of all his grand airs. I can persuade him into believing anything. But you are a real friend, aren't you? Mouret is done for, old chap; we'll drink his wine together.'
When Guillaume had seen Trouche to his door, he walked back through the sleeping town and went and whistled softly before Monsieur Maffre's house. It was a signal he was making. The young Maffres, whom their father locked up in their bedroom, opened a window on the first floor and descended to the ground by the help of the bars with which the ground-floor windows were protected. Every night they thus went off to the haunts of vice in the company of Guillaume Porquier.
'Well,' he said to them, when they had reached the dark paths near the ramparts, 'we needn't trouble ourselves now. If my father talks any more about sending me off anywhere, I shall have something serious to say to him. I'll bet you that I can get elected into the Young Men's Club whenever I like now.'