“Let us alone, for God’s sake!”
The crowd dispersed. But one fat woman followed them for some distance, and exclaimed that they would repent of it.
When they got back to the inn they found Gouttman in the café. His business called him to these quarters, and he was talking to a man who was examining accounts at a table.
This person had a leather cap, a very wide pair of trousers, a red complexion, and a good figure in spite of his white hair: he had the appearance at the same time of a retired officer and an old strolling player.
From time to time he rapped out an oath; then, when Gouttman replied in a mild tone, he calmed down at once and passed to another part of the accounts.
Bouvard who had been closely watching him, at the end of a quarter of an hour came up to his side.
“Barberou, I believe?”
“Bouvard!” exclaimed the man in the cap, and they embraced each other.
Barberou had in the course of twenty years experienced many changes of fortune. He had been editor of a newspaper, an insurance agent, and manager of an oyster-bed.
“I will tell you all about it,” he said.