HOW TRICOTKIN SAW LONDON
One day Tricotrin had eighty francs, and he said to Pitou, who was no less prosperous, "Good-bye to follies, for we have arrived at an epoch in our careers! Do not let us waste our substance on trivial pleasures, or paying the landlord—let us make it a provision for our future!"
"I rejoice to hear you speak for once like a business-man," returned Pitou. "Do you recommend gilt-edged securities, or an investment in land?"
"I would suggest, rather, that we apply our riches to some educational purpose, such as travel," explained the poet, producing a railway company's handbill. "By this means we shall enlarge our minds, and somebody has pretended that 'knowledge is power'—it must have been the principal of a school. It is not for nothing that we have l'Entente Cordiale—you may now spend a Sunday in London at about the cost of one of Madeleine's hats."
"These London Sunday baits may be a plot of the English Government to exterminate us; I have read that none but English people can survive a Sunday in London."
"No, it is not that, for we are offered the choice of a town called 'Eastbourne,' Listen, they tell me that in London the price of cigarettes is so much lower than with us that, to a bold smuggler, the trip is a veritable economy. Matches too! Matches are so cheap in England that the practice of stealing them from café tables has not been introduced."
"Well, your synopsis will be considered, and reported on in due course," announced the composer, after a pause; "but at the moment of going to press we would rather buy a hat for Madeleine."
And as Madeleine also thought that this would be better for him, it was decided that Tricotrin should set forth alone.
His departure for a foreign country was a solemn event. A small party of the Montmartrois had marched with him to the station, and more than once, in view of their anxious faces, the young man acknowledged mentally that he was committed to a harebrained scheme. "Heaven protect thee, my comrade!" faltered Pitou. "Is thy vocabulary safely in thy pocket? Remember that 'un bock' is 'glass of beer.'"
"Here is a small packet of chocolate," murmured Lajeunie, embracing him; "in England, nothing to eat can be obtained on Sunday, and chocolate is very sustaining."