He reflected for a moment and exclaimed:
"Oh, who cares? I shall go on for all that. It's no reason, because Pierre Leduc is dead, that I should throw up the game. On the contrary! And the opportunity is too tempting! Pierre Leduc is dead! Long live Pierre Leduc! . . . Go, Doctor, go home. I shall ring you up before dinner."
The doctor went out.
"Now then, Philippe," said Sernine to his last remaining visitor, a little gray-haired man, dressed like a waiter at a hotel, a very tenth-rate hotel, however.
"You will remember, governor," Philippe began, "that last week, you made me go as boots to the Hôtel des Deux-Empereurs at Versailles, to keep my eye on a young man."
"Yes, I know. . . . Gérard Baupré. How do things stand with him?"
"He's at the end of his resources."
"Still full of gloomy ideas?"
"Yes. He wants to kill himself."
"Is he serious?"