"Well, let us admit that there is nothing to be done; you will have to own up!"
"Are you insane? It is improvident youths like you, who come to lament their wasted lives. If I could receive him this once as he expects to be received, we cannot doubt that it would mean an income of two thousand francs to me. Prosperity dangles before us—shall I fail to clutch it? Mon Dieu, what a catastrophe, his coming to Paris! Why cannot he conduct his business in Lyons? Is there not enough money in the city of Lyons to satisfy him? O grasper! what greed! Nicolas, my more than brother, if it were night when I took him to a sumptuous apartment, he might not notice the name of the street—I could talk brilliantly as we turned the corner. Also I could scintillate as I led him away. He would never know that it was not the rue des Trois Frères."
"You are right," agreed Pitou; "but which is the pauper in our social circle whose sumptuous apartment you propose to acquire?"
"One must consider," said Tricotrin. "Obviously, I am compelled to entertain in somebody's; fortunately, I have two days to find it in. I shall now go forth!"
It was a genial morning, and the first person he accosted in the rue Ravignan was Goujaud, painting in the patch of garden before the studios. "Tell me, Goujaud," exclaimed the poet, "have you any gilded acquaintance who would permit me the use of his apartment for two hours to-morrow evening?"
Goujaud reflected for some seconds, with his head to one side. "I have never done anything so fine as this before," he observed; "regard the atmosphere of it!"
"It is execrable!" replied Tricotrin, and went next door to Flamant. "My old one," he explained, "I have urgent need of a regal apartment for two hours to-morrow—have you a wealthy friend who would accommodate me?"
"You may beautify your bedroom with all my possessions," returned
Flamant heartily. "I have a stuffed parrot that is most decorative, but
I have not a friend that is wealthy."
"You express yourself like a First Course for the Foreigner," said
Tricotrin, much annoyed. "Devil take your stuffed parrot!"
The heat of the sun increased towards midday, and drops began to trickle under the young man's hat. By four o'clock he had called upon sixty-two persons, exclusive of Sanquereau, whom he had been unable to wake. He bethought himself of Lajeunie, the novelist; but Lajeunie could offer him nothing more serviceable than a pass for the Elysée- Montmartre. "Now how is it possible that I spend my life among such imbeciles?" groaned the unhappy poet; "one offers me a parrot, and another a pass for a dancing-hall! Can I assure my uncle, who is a married man, and produces silk in vast quantities, that I reside in a dancing-hall? Besides, we know those passes—they are available only for ladies."