"Messieurs," interposed Balivan, "I assure you that neither one of you will win. My neighbor won't listen to you."
"You'll see whether she will or not, artist. I will be persistent, I tell you; not so much on account of the girl, as to be revenged on that cur who played the insolent with us. He does our errands, and he dares to talk back to us! upon my word, it is sickening!"
The young men had left the café and were about to separate, when Bastringuette passed them on the boulevard, with her flowers.
"There's Bastringuette!" exclaimed Albert; "parbleu! she is always out of doors—she must help us in our hunt for Tobie."
"True, she can act as beater," said Mouillot.
The young men walked toward the flower girl, and halted in front of her. Bastringuette looked up at them.
"Mon Dieu!" she ejaculated; "what a bunch of customers to fall on me all at once! What luck for me! for I haven't sold anything to-day. Buy my flowers, messieurs; I have something to put in your buttonholes."
"Bastringuette," said Albert, "do you remember the young man who was with us the day before yesterday on the boulevard? the one who thrust his nose into all your bouquets to smell them better?"
"You mean a fat little fellow with a face that looked like a painting, and a small glass in one eye?"
"That's the man, you know him."