"Not a crumb—I am ravenous myself. But I recall a broken cigarette in my waistcoat pocket; let us cut it in halves!"
They strove, shivering, to appease their pangs by slow whiffs of a Caporal, and while they supped in this unsatisfactory fashion, there came an impetuous knocking at the street door.
"It must be that La Coupole has sent you a sack of gold to go on with!"
Tricotrin opined. "Put your head out and see."
"It is Lajeunie," announced the composer, withdrawing from the window with chattering teeth. "What the devil can he want? I suppose I must go down and let him in."
"Perhaps we can get some more cigarettes from him," said Tricotrin; "it might have been worse."
But when the novelist appeared, the first thing he stammered was, "Give me a cigarette, one of you fellows, or I shall die!"
"Well, then, dictate your last wishes to us!" returned Pitou. "Do you come here under the impression that the house is a tobacconist's? What is the matter with you, what is up?" "For three hours," snuffled Lajeunie, who looked half frozen and kept shuddering violently, "for three hours I have been pacing the streets, questioning whether I should break the news to you to-night or not. In one moment I told myself that it would be better to withhold it till the morning; in the next I felt that you had a right to hear it without delay. Hour after hour, in the snow, I turned the matter over in my mind, and—"
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Pitou, "is this an interminable serial at so much a column? Come to the point!"
Lajeunie beat his breast. "I am distracted," he faltered, "I am no longer master of myself. Listen! It occurred to me this evening that I might do worse than pay a visit to La Coupole and inquire if a date was fixed yet for the rehearsals to begin. Well, I went! For a long time I could obtain no interview, I could obtain no appointment—the messenger came back with evasive answers. I am naturally quick at smelling a rat —I have the detective's instinct—and I felt that there was something wrong. My heart began to fail me."
"For mercy's sake," groaned his unhappy collaborator, "explode the bomb and bury my fragments! Enough of these literary introductions. Did you see the manager, or didn't you?"