Cyprien signed it.
“And we retain your confidence?” M. Pums asked as he rose. “You still wish me to direct your orders?”
“What! Are you laughing at me, M. Pums?” Cyprien replied. “My confidence.... My gratitude, you should say ... my deep gratitude! Buy me, if you please, the same stocks, or buy me any other that you think more advisable.... I am convinced that you are acting for my best interests.... Au revoir, monsieur, and thank you again!”
When he reached the street he turned instinctively towards the Bourse. The seven 100-franc notes which they had given him formed a little hard protuberance in his inside pocket, and he laid his hand on it at every step. He was filled with schemes of generous bounty. He paused a little while to contemplate the tumult of the Bourse, the shouting crowd that was perhaps to make him richer again soon. Entering the nearest tobacco shop he asked for special brand cigars and was shown several kinds. He sniffed them in expert fashion and, by squeezing them in the middle, made them crackle against his ear. Finally he bought a box at one franc apiece and added two packets of American cigarettes to this purchase.
But when he went out, he caught sight of a pipe merchan window near the shop and still on the place de la Bourse. Supported with invisible props or laid in luxurious cases, with stems that were brutally straight and stems with serpentine curves, meerschaum and briar pipes mingled their white and brown colors. Gold and silver rings encircled amber cigar cases; all of them, in their velvet cases, had the air of fine jewels destined for princely lips. Cyprien looked at them and shook his head. All at once a look of satisfaction shone in his eyes. What if he were to buy one of those pipes, a nice, fat meerschaum, like that of the Marquis, for his old comrade Schleifmann of whom, their dispute notwithstanding, he was very fond! And he entered the shop.
His selection proved to be so long, so careful an affair that it was past 12.45 by the clock of the Brasserie Klapproth when M. Raindal arrived.
“A little present for you, my dear Schleifmann!” he said, sitting down to the left of the Galician. “A little present which I have been considering for a long time.... Take it ... yes, open it; it is for you!”
Slowly Schleifmann opened the parcel.
“A pipe!” he exclaimed, as he played with the case.
“Quite so, and a pipe de luxe! The result of six months’ savings in cigarettes, my dear friend!”