"How dear to every noble heart one's native land!
With rapture I once more behold this blest abode!"
His concierge interrupted him in the middle of his declamation to say:
"Monsieur, your friend Monsieur Edmond Didier has been here almost every day to ask for you."
"Indeed! dear Edmond! Is he in such haste to see me?"
"And then another one of your friends, Monsieur Chamoureau, whose clothes you have kept since Mi-Carême, and who is very angry with you. He often comes twice a day to know if you have returned."
"What's that? Chamoureau angry! Oh, well! he'll calm down! Why, one would think he hadn't any other clothes to put on—a man with a real estate office!—Poor Chamoureau! I would have liked to find him still dressed as a Spaniard; I should have enjoyed that! But, to console him, I'll give him a stick of sugar-candy that I brought from Rouen, where they cost more than they do in Paris; to be sure, they're made in Rouen."
Freluchon had not been at home an hour, when his doorbell rang violently; he went to open the door, saying to himself:
"That's Chamoureau, I'll bet; if he's still out of temper I'll talk to him about Eléonore and make him weep."
But it was not the business agent, it was Edmond who entered his friend's apartment.
"Well, you have returned at last!" he said; "that's fortunate! I have been longing for you; I wanted to see you!"