"Let us go and see," said Granet.
"Would it not be an indiscretion on our part?" asked Vaudrey, half seriously.
The financier, however, was by this time at the side of the two pretty girls, and asked the blonde what the paper contained, the names on which her companion was spelling out.
Marie Launay, a lovely girl with little ringlets of fair hair curling low down upon her forehead, smiled like a pretty, innocent and still timid child, under the luring glances of the fat man, and glancing with an expression of virgin innocence at Sulpice and Granet, who were standing beside him, replied:
"That—Oh! that is the subscription we are getting up for Mademoiselle Legrand."
"Oh! that is so," said Molina. "You mean to make her a present of a statuette?"
"On her taking her leave of us. Yes, every one has subscribed to it—even the boxholders. Do you see?"
Marie Launay quickly snatched the paper from her friend; on it were several names, some written in ink, others in pencil, the whole presenting the peculiar appearance of schoolboys' pot-hooks or the graceful lines traced by crawling flies, while the fantastic spelling offered a strange medley. Molina burst out laughing, his ever-present laugh that sounded like the shaking of a money-bag,—when he ran his eye over the list and found accompanying the names of ballet-dancers and members of the chorus, the distinguished particles of some habitués.
"Look! your Excellency—It is stupendous! Here: Amélie Dunois, 2 francs. Jeanne Garnot, 5 francs. Bel-Enfant—Charles—, 1 fr., 50 centimes. Warnier I., 2 francs. Warnier II., 2 francs. Gigonnet, 4 francs. Baron Humann, 100 francs. The baron!—the former prefect! Humann writing his name down here with Bel-Enfant and Gigonnet. Humann inscribing above his signature—I vill supscribe von hundertfranc! If one were to see it in a newspaper, one would not believe it! If only a reporter were here now! For a choice Paris echo what a rare one it would be!"
Granet examined little Marie Launay with sly glances, toying with his black moustache the while, and the other young girl Anna, very much confused at the coarse laughter of Molina the "Tumbler," kept turning around in her slender fingers the aluminum pencil-case and looking at Marie as much as to say: