"If you are looking for a faithful woman, I should find it very hard to direct you to one; for I don't know any."
"No, not that; I simply want to know Tobie Pigeonnier's address."
"The deuce! that's almost as hard to find as the other. In the first place, is it quite certain that little Tobie has any address? I believe he contents himself with perching, like the birds; he lights now here, now there."
"Let's not joke; he told us that he lived on Rue de la Ferme-des-Mathurins."
"True; but at what number?"
"Ah! that I don't know."
"It's very easy to say: 'I live on Rue de la Ferme-des-Mathurins, or Rue de la Paix, or Rue de Rivoli,'—when you confine yourself to that;—in that way, you can live in the most fashionable quarters of Paris. For my own part, I believe little Tobie has a nest in some closet on Rue du Pont-aux-Biches or Place du Chevalier-du-Guet. His hasty departure from our little party at Balivan's the night before last—after putting up a fetich for five hundred francs, that poor Varinet gave him change for—— Do you know, that looks rather shady to me. If he had lost the five hundred francs, it would be all right; you would say that it probably wasn't convenient for him to pay; but he lost only about fifty."
"Didn't he go to pay Varinet the next day?"
"I don't know, but I'll bet he didn't; however, we can soon find out, for there are Varinet and Balivan now, drinking chocolate at Tortoni's."
Albert and Célestin entered the café and accosted their friends, just as Balivan was dipping his cigar in the chocolate, thinking that it was a roll.