"Sapristi! what times are these we live in? The world is becoming vile beyond cleansing! No courtesy, no affability, no good manners! Formerly, when I met a friend, my first words were: 'You must come to dine with me.'—He might accept or not, but I had made the offer. To-day, I meet nobody but cads, who are very careful not to offer me the slightest thing; indeed, many of them presume to pass me by, and act as if they didn't know me. There are others who carry their insolence so far as to dare to ask me for some paltry hundred-sou pieces which they have loaned me and I have not paid. Pardieu! I've loaned them plenty of 'em in the old days; and I never asked for them, because I knew it would be of no use. As if one ever returned money loaned among friends! As if what belongs to one doesn't belong to the other! That's the way I understand friendship—that noble, genuine friendship which united Castor and Pollux, Damon and Pythias, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades. Do we find in the Iliad that Patroclus ever said to Achilles: 'I loaned you a hundred sous, or twenty francs; I want you to pay them'? Bah! nothing of the sort; there's no instance in history of such a thing! And I defy all my former companions in pleasure to cite a single one. However, I am conscious to-day that the need of eating is making itself felt; I can't go to my little cabaret on Rue Basse-du-Temple, for the mistress is sick; her husband takes her place at the desk, and he is always ill-disposed toward me; he presumes to ask me for money! Vile turnspit! do you suppose I would go to your place for food if I had money? Ah! there's Bernardin; I am sure of a dinner there; but I am horribly bored with those good people. And then, it wounds my self-esteem to dine with one of my father's former clerks. Corbleu! can it be that, like Titus, I have wasted my day?"
And Cherami, still tapping his trousers with his switch, cast his eyes about him. Thereupon he spied the two girls who were waiting to go to Belleville.
"There are two little grisettes, whose aspect rather pleases me," he said to himself, throwing his weight on his left hip; "a blonde and a brunette—meat for the king's attorney, as we used to say at the club. They're pretty hussies both; the blonde has a rather stupid look, but the dark one has wit in her eye.—Suppose I should try to make a conquest by offering them a good dinner? Ten to one, they'll accept! I know the sex; these girls are so fond of eating! Yes, but in that case—they'll have to pay for the dinner; that might embarrass them, and I don't want to embarrass any woman. But if I did, I should do no more than avenge myself."
While making these reflections, Cherami had walked toward the young women; he struck a pose in front of them, humming a lively tune, and darted a glance at them into which he put all the seductiveness of which he was still capable. The young women looked at each other and laughed heartily; Mademoiselle Laurette went so far as to say, in a bantering tone:
"That must be a smoke-pipe from the Opéra-Comique that has a vent in this neighborhood; however, it's better than an escape of gas."
"Aha! we are clever and satirical!" said Cherami, addressing Mademoiselle Laurette; "I had guessed as much, simply by observing your saucy face."
"Why, I don't know what you mean, monsieur!" replied the girl, trying to assume a serious expression.
"I was simply answering the reflection in which you just indulged on the subject of a roulade which I ventured to perform, and which, perhaps, was not rendered with perfect accuracy."
"But, monsieur, I really didn't know that you were singing; I was saying to my friend Lucie that we should be very late in getting to the restaurant in Parc Saint-Fargeau, and that I didn't know whether there was dancing there on Saturday."
"Aha! so the young ladies are going to Parc Saint-Fargeau?—That is just beyond Belleville, I believe?"