"There are two parrakeets that have need of plucking across the way," he added, reflectively.
"There are two empty sacks here to put the feathers in," answered Arsène, with alacrity; and ten minutes later, oblivious to the chill damp of the March morning, Monsieur Sigard and his new-found acquaintance, seated at a little table in front of a near-by wine-shop, were preparing in company the smoky-green mixture of absinthe and water which Paris slang has dubbed a parrakeet. On the part of Arsène the operation was performed with elaborate solicitude, and as he poured a tiny stream of water over the lump of sugar on the flat spoon balanced deftly across the glass, he held his head tipped sidewise and his left eye closed, in the manner of a contemplative fowl, and was oblivious to all but the delectable business of the moment.
But his companion, while apparently deeply engaged in the preparation of his own beverage, was far from being wholly preoccupied thereby. He was a man shorter by an inch or two than Monsieur Michel's maître d'hôtel, dressed in the most inconspicuous fashion, and with an air of avoiding any emphasis of voice or gesture which would be apt to attract more than casual attention to the circumstance of his existence. There was something about him vaguely suggestive of a chameleon, an instant harmonizing of his appearance and manner with any background whatsoever against which he chanced to find himself placed, and a curious clouding of his eyes when unexpectedly they were met by those of another, which lent him an immediate air of profound stupidity. No doubt his long practice in this habit of self-obliteration made him doubly appreciative of Arsène's little outburst of ill-feeling on the platform of the gare de Lyon. A man who would do that in public—well, he had much to learn!
Just now, however, this gentleman's eyes were very bright, though they had dwindled to mere slits; and he followed every movement of the unconscious Arsène with short, swift glances from beneath his drooping lids, as, bit by bit, the lumps of sugar melted under the steady drip of the trickling water, and the opalescent mixture mounted toward the brims. He knew but two varieties of absinthe drinker, this observant individual,—the one who progressed, under its influence, from cheerful candor to shrewdest insight into the motives of others, and most skilful evasion of their toils; the other whom, by easy stages, it led from obstinate reserve to the extreme of careless garrulity. At this moment he was on the alert for symptoms.
Arsène looked up suddenly as the last morsel of his sugar melted, and, lifting his glass, dipped it before the eyes of his new friend.
"To your health,—Monsieur—?" he said, in courteous interrogation.
"Fresque," said the other.
"Bon! And I, Monsieur Fresque, am Sigard, Arsène Sigard, maître d'hôtel, at your service, of the type who has just taken himself off, down there."
And he indicated the imposing pile of the gare de Lyon with his thumb, and then, closing his eyes, took a long sip of his absinthe, and replacing the glass upon the table, plunged his hands into his pockets and stared off gloomily toward the Seine.
"Poof!" he said, "but I am content that he is gone. What a filthiness, a rich man—what?"