"I believe you, Ballangier, I believe you! But your conduct is no excuse for mine. I ought not to have treated you harshly, as I did just now. You were drunk, and I should have taken pity on your condition. When I think that I pushed you so roughly that you fell, I am terribly angry with myself. Come, give me your hand again, and forgive me for throwing you down."
Ballangier took my hands and effusively pressed them in his, while great tears fell from his eyes and he muttered:
"He asks me to forgive him, after all the mean tricks I've played on him! Oh! you're too good to me, Charles; you ought to beat me—yes, beat me like an old carpet; for I cheated you also about going to Besançon. It is true that I had had a letter from Morillot—you saw the letter, you know; but when you gave me four hundred francs for the journey, I didn't go as I had promised you! I allowed myself to be led away by some of those villainous loafers whom we are foolish enough to call friends, when we ought rather to call them enemies. What sort of friends are they who can do nothing but drink and carouse and raise the devil in wine shops, who pass their lives in idleness and make sport of steady, hard-working mechanics, and who never cease trying to make us do all sorts of foolish things, so that we may end by being as worthless as they are? With friends like that, a man ought to smash their ribs the first time they give him bad advice; I'm sure that would lessen the number of vagrants that are taken to the Préfecture every week. But that's all over; I'll take my oath, Charles, by all that's holy, that it's all over this time! You won't be obliged again to—push me, as you did just now."
"I believe you, Ballangier; let us forget all that. But tell me—how did you succeed in getting rid of your creditor?"
"Piaulard? Oh, yes! now you remind me of it, it is strange; for I didn't pay him. Well, after you threw me on the ground, where I lay for some time, all dazed like—not that I was hurt at all, but I was dazed by the effect I felt inside of me; I can't describe it—at last I got up, and found everybody had gone, Piaulard with the rest, for I didn't see him again. It's a strange thing, sure enough. I stayed a long while right in the same place, like a dazed man; I don't know what I was thinking about—that is to say, I was looking for you; I was determined to see you and ask your pardon.—Ah! now I remember—a lady came and spoke to me."
"A lady?"
"Yes, yes! Why, I forgot all about her!"
"What was her appearance? Try to remember; draw her portrait for me."
"She was dressed in style, and I think she was rather tall; as for her face, I didn't pay any attention to it. I was still looking for you; I was like a madman; I didn't know what I was doing, but I was calling your name, and I think I was weeping too."
"But what did this lady say? what did she want of you?"