“Why,” cried Pelisson, “he’s talking sense, this boy is!”
“He’s talking nonsense,” said Struve.
“He’s talking divinity—I mean (hic) divinely,” said Gaillard, who was finishing his second bottle of champagne, and writing poetry on his cuffs with the stylographic pen that had just helped in the destruction of a Ministry.
De Nani was dumbly digesting; he had filled his pockets with cigars, and was wishing he had brought a sack. He was also drunk—in fact, to put it plainly, very drunk.
“I’m talking sense,” cried Toto with flashing eyes.
“He can’t paint,” suddenly broke out De Nani, the drunkenness lifting like a veil and disclosing his true thoughts. “He’s only pretending. Doesn’t want to paint—’sgot four mistresses.”
He slipped away from his chair as if sucked down by a whirlpool. A roar of laughter went up that shook the ceiling, and then, to everyone’s horror, Toto the debonair, the hero of cock-fights and what not, broke into tears.
At this extraordinary sight Gaillard first gazed with a grin, and then burst out like a firework touched off, wringing his hands and calling upon God.
“Devil take that old scoundrel!” cried Pelisson, kicking at the body of De Nani, which seemed quite flaccid now that the truth had got out of it. “Where did you pick him up?—he’s a scamp, he’s a scamp!”
“Toto, my dear Toto,” lisped Struve, “paint a picture to-morrow, and I’ll make it famouth for you. So help me God! I will, or my name’s not Struve.”