Two hours later they came out, each smoking a big cigar; Gaillard’s held delicately between finger and thumb and whiffed at occasionally, Toto’s stuck in the corner of his mouth.
“Let us to the Moulin Rouge,” said Gaillard. “I have dined; I want to laugh.”
“But how about this Fanfoullard?”
The poet had quite forgotten Fanfoullard, the attic, the Henri Quatre stove, and all the rest of it.
“Oh, he will wait; Fanfoullard is eternal, like a tortoise. A hundred years hence you will find him painting his fans and crawling out at dark to sell them.”
“But I don’t want him in a hundred years; I want him now, to arrange about that room.”
“What room?”
“The room you spoke of.”
Gaillard groaned. He thought his companion had forgotten all that, which showed that he only knew Toto by his surface.
“You will not find Fanfoullard interesting.”