"Agreed; we will go Tobie-hunting."
"Tobie-hunting it is! Tally-ho!"
"But one suggestion, messieurs," said Mouillot; "I don't see why this hunt should interfere with our hunting grisettes also. How about your little neighbor, Balivan? She is really charming, do you know? What are you doing with her?"
"Oh! I assure you, messieurs, that young woman is very virtuous, and I don't advise you to think about her—it will be time thrown away."
"Virtuous!" repeated Célestin, with a shrug; "I thought you knew more than that about the sex, my dear artist! We found your little virtue in a dark loft, with a young rascal, who was holding her very tight—and for whom I have a rod in pickle; but he wasn't in his usual place this morning."
"Nonsense," said Albert; "you don't propose to fight with a messenger, I trust! and, after all, if he is her lover, he was quite right to defend the girl."
"Oho! here's Albert taking up the cudgels for the dressmaker! it's highly edifying.—I propose a wager, Mouillot: fifteen napoleons that I triumph first over that timid virtue."
"Done! I take the bet.—Are you in it, Albert?"
"No."
"Albert is too busily occupied elsewhere," said Célestin, in a mocking tone; "and, besides that, don't you see that he has set himself up as the defender of grisettes?"