"Yes!" said Sans-Cravate; "I don't think any more of her than if I'd never known her. Damme! if anybody should ask me now what color Bastringuette's eyes are, I should be hard put to it to answer. I don't remember."
"And you see," said Jean Ficelle, "there is people who say that you never win at cards. But that's all nonsense! and the proof is that I might have made my fortune if I hadn't been a coward."
"But to say that she wasn't pretty, that there wasn't something alluring about her—I should lie, if I denied it. But all women have that. Parbleu! you only have to be in love to find it out."
"Look you, I'll give you a comparison: You haven't got any money, and you stake what you have—then you win! But if you have anything, you're afraid of losing it; so you won't risk it, and you miss the chance of making a fortune."
"And that fellow who's always looking at me, and acts as if he wanted to speak to me. Oh! just let him come—I'll give him a warm reception! It ain't that I've seen him with Bastringuette. No, I'll have to admit that; since that day on Rue Barbette, when we met Paul dressed like a swell, and Bastringuette a little farther on—I've never seen him with her, and they do well to keep out of sight! For if they should act as if they meant to laugh at me—why, by heaven! it would go hard with 'em!"
"And then, you see, there's some who are mighty smart—they always win. I know one fellow—and he's a great swell—who makes six francs a day with biribi; that's a trade that would suit me down to the ground!"
Suddenly Jean Ficelle put his hand on his comrade's arm and stopped him, saying:
"Look, they're already at it, the rascals! They go to work early, they're no sluggards!"
The messengers had reached the river bank, near a game of table-basse, run by a tall fellow whose tongue was never at rest; he bewildered his audience by his incessant chatter.
A number of men of somewhat forbidding aspect were gathered about the game. But as two countrymen approached, the spectators made room for them; and the sharper offered them a dicebox with some little balls, crying: