The Martian: A Novel

by George Du Maurier

To his great surprise he saw Bonzig leisurely flâning about with his cigarette in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, his long spectacled nose in the air—gazing at the shop windows. Suddenly the good man dived into a baker's shop, and came out again in half a minute with a large brown roll, and began to munch it—still gazing at the shop windows, and apparently quite content.

Barty rushed after and caught hold of him, and breathlessly heaped bitter reproaches on him for his base and unfriendly want of confidence—snatched his roll and threw it away, dragged him by main force into Carmagnol's, and made him order the dinner he preferred and sit opposite.

"Ma foi, mon cher!" said Bonzig—"I own to you that I am almost at the end of my resources for the moment—and also that the prospect of a good dinner in your amiable company is the reverse of disagreeable to me. I thank you in advance, with all my heart!"

"My dear M'sieur Bonzig," says Barty, "you will wound me deeply if you don't look on me like a brother, as I do you; I can't tell you how deeply you have wounded me already! Give me your word of honor that you will share ma mangeaille with me till I haven't a sou left!"

And so they made it up, and had a capital dinner and a capital evening, and Barty insisted that in future they should always mess together at his expense till better days—and they did.

But Barty found that his own money was just giving out, and wrote to his bankers in London for more. Somehow it didn't arrive for nearly a week; and they knew at last what it was to dine for five sous each (2‑1/2d.)—with loss of appetite just before the meal instead of after.

Of course Barty might very well have pawned his watch or his scarf‑pin; but whatever trinkets he possessed had been given him by his beloved Lady Archibald—everything pawnable he had in the world, even his guitar! And he could not bear the idea of taking them to the "Mont de Piété."

So he was well pleased one Sunday morning when his remittance arrived, and he went in search of his friend, that they might compensate themselves for a week's abstinence by a famous déjeuner. But Bonzig was not to be found; and Barty spent that day alone, and gorged in solitude and guzzled in silence—moult tristement, à l'anglaise.

He was aroused from his first sleep that night by the irruption of Bonzig in a tremendous state of excitement. It seems that a certain Baron (whose name I've forgotten), and whose little son the ex‑usher had once coached in early Latin and Greek, had written, begging him to call and see him at his château near Melun; that Bonzig had walked there that very day—thirty miles; and found the Baron was leaving next morning for a villa he possessed near Étretat, and wished him to join him there the day after, and stay with him for a couple of months—to coach his son in more classics for a couple of hours in the forenoon.

Bonzig was to dispose of the rest of his time as he liked, except that he was commissioned to paint six "marines" for the baronial dining‑room; and the Baron had most considerately given him four hundred francs in advance!