And chumming with these two delightful men, Barty grew to know a clean, quiet happiness which more than made up for lost past splendors and dissipations and gay dishonor. He wasn't even funny; they wouldn't have understood it. Well‑bred Frenchmen don't understand English fun—not even in the quartier latin, as a general rule. Not that it's too subtle for them; that's not why!
Thus pleasantly August wore itself away, Bonzig and Barty nearly always dining together for about a franc apiece, including the waiter, and not badly. Bonzig knew all the cheap eating‑houses in Paris, and what each was specially renowned for—"bonne friture," "fricassée de lapin," "pommes sautées," "soupe aux choux," etc., etc.
Then, after dinner, a long walk and talk and cigarettes—or they would look in at a café chantant, a bal de barrière, the gallery of a cheap theatre—then a bock outside a café—et bonsoir la compagnie!
On September the 1st, Lirieux and his brother went to see their people in the south, leaving the studio to Bonzig and Barty, who made the most of it, though greatly missing the genial young painter, both as a companion and a master and guide.
One beautiful morning Bonzig called for Barty at his crémerie, and proposed they should go by train to some village near Paris and spend a happy day in the country, lunching on bread and wine and sugar at some little roadside inn. Bonzig made a great deal of this lunch. It had evidently preoccupied him.
Barty was only too delighted. They went on the impériale of the Versailles train and got out at Ville d'Avray, and found the kind of little pothouse they wanted. And Barty had to admit that no better lunch for the price could be than "small blue wine" sweetened with sugar, and a hunch of bread sopped in it.
Then they had a long walk in pretty woods and meadows, sketching by the way, chatting to laborers and soldiers and farm‑people, smoking endless cigarettes of caporal; and finally they got back to Paris the way they came—so hungry that Barty proposed they should treat themselves for once to a "prix‑fixe" dinner at Carmagnol's, in the Passage Choiseul, where they gave you hors‑d'œuvres, potage, three courses and dessert and a bottle of wine, for two francs fifty—and everything scrupulously clean.
So to the Passage Choiseul they went; but just on the threshold of the famous restaurant (which filled the entire arcade with its appetizing exhalations) Bonzig suddenly remembered, to his great regret, that close by there lived a young married couple of the name of Lousteau, who were great friends of his, and who expected him to dine with them at least once a week.
"I haven't been near them for a fortnight, mon cher, and it is just their dinner hour. I am afraid I must really just run in and eat an aile de poulet and a pêche au vin with them, and give them of my news, or they will be mortally offended. I'll be back with you just when you are 'entre la poire et le fromage'—so, sans adieu!" and he bolted.
Barty went in and selected his menu; and waiting for his hors‑d'œuvre, he just peeped out of the door and looked up and down the arcade, which was always festive and lively at that hour.