Chapter XI
Theft
"La fortune ne laisse rien perdre pour les hommes heureux."
I thus returned Alphonse Giraud's visit sooner than either of us anticipated, for I had to go and tell him what had happened in the Rue des Palmiers. I delivered my news in as few words as possible, and cannot tell how he took the evil tidings, for when I had spoken I walked to the window, and there stood looking down into the street.
"Have you told me all?" asked Giraud at length, wondering, perhaps, that I lingered.
"No."
I turned and faced him, the little French dandy, in his stiff collar and patent-leather boots—no bigger than a girl's. The politeness of our previous intercourse seemed to have fallen away from us.
"No—I have not told you all. It seems likely that you, like myself, have been left a poor man."