“So I dink,” Schmucke replied simply.
Pons could not understand it. Neither the Camusots nor the Popinots had sent him notice of Cecile’s wedding.
On the Boulevard des Italiens Pons saw M. Cardot coming towards them. Warned by Count Popinot’s allocution, Pons was very careful not to accost the old acquaintance with whom he had dined once a fortnight for the last year; he lifted his hat, but the other, mayor and deputy of Paris, threw him an indignant glance and went by. Pons turned to Schmucke.
“Do go and ask him what it is that they all have against me,” he said to the friend who knew all the details of the catastrophe that Pons could tell him.
“Mennseir,” Schmucke began diplomatically, “mine friend Bons is chust recofering from an illness; you haf no doubt fail to rekognize him?”
“Not in the least.”
“But mit vat kann you rebroach him?”
“You have a monster of ingratitude for a friend, sir; if he is still alive, it is because nothing kills ill weeds. People do well to mistrust artists; they are as mischievous and spiteful as monkeys. This friend of yours tried to dishonor his own family, and to blight a young girl’s character, in revenge for a harmless joke. I wish to have nothing to do with him; I shall do my best to forget that I have known him, or that such a man exists. All the members of his family and my own share the wish, sir, so do all the persons who once did the said Pons the honor of receiving him.”
“Boot, mennseir, you are a reasonaple mann; gif you vill bermit me, I shall exblain die affair—”
“You are quite at liberty to remain his friend, sir, if you are minded that way,” returned Cardot, “but you need go no further; for I must give you warning that in my opinion those who try to excuse or defend his conduct are just as much to blame.”