XXVI
A REMOVAL.—A SURPRISE
The weather was dark and damp and cold. Sans-Cravate was seated in his usual place, as dismal and gloomy as the weather. His eyes wandered from side to side, often resting on the spot where Paul was accustomed to stand; then he fixed them on the ground at his feet, rested his head on his hands, and sat perfectly motionless.
Jean Ficelle walked to and fro in front of his comrade, whistling or humming between his teeth, and from time to time taking a bite from a great slice of bread which he rubbed with a raw onion; but that repast seemed to be a matter of necessity, not of enjoyment.
"Sacrédié!" he exclaimed suddenly, halting before his friend. "It ain't any use for me to try to like this stuff—it's nasty! Dry bread and onion will never be as good as roast veal. This is a beastly sort of breakfast for a fellow to eat; but when you're breaking in two with hunger, you must stuff your blackguard of a belly with something or other! If I only had a drop of wine to wash it down with! but there's not enough in my pocket to pay for the smallest kind of a glass. And that wine shop keeper yonder won't trust me any more, on the pretext that I owe him money now! What an old fool! Parbleu! if I didn't owe him anything, he couldn't ever have trusted me. People ain't reasonable at all. I say, Sans-Cravate, business has been pretty bad lately. We don't earn hardly anything."
"That ain't surprising; when we have a few sous, you take me right off to spend 'em! then people come and don't find us in our places, so they hire somebody else; that's the way I've lost almost all my customers. Oh! I know well enough that I am doing wrong; I shall never save up money by hanging round wine shops and seeing nobody but loafers. What can they think of me at home? I am ashamed to write to my father. And my sister, little Liline, that I meant to save money for, to give her a marriage portion! Damnation! I'm an infernal coward! And to think that I haven't got the strength of mind to begin to work hard again as I used to! Ah! when a man has grief in his heart, he's good for nothing."
"Ta! ta! ta! there you go again! You're always blaming yourself, and for what? Sans-Cravate, you're no man! is it our fault if we don't get any errands to do? No. But just because we go and take a drink once in a while outside the barrier, you say we're losing our customers. That's damned nonsense! Look you: I'll give you a comparison, to prove that customers come all the same when we ain't here. There's Paul, that gawk who used to stand over yonder, and hasn't showed up for two weeks because you hit him so hard that he hurt himself a little when he fell,—well, in the fortnight he's been away haven't they sent here for him twenty times, to go to Monsieur Vermoncey, who wanted him? And five days ago, when you were off on an errand, didn't monsieur himself come and ask for him? There's a man that looks as if he was well fixed; he's the father of your old customer, Monsieur Albert. Ah! there was a young fellow who paid handsomely; how the money slipped through his fingers, and what a pity he's left Paris! If he hadn't, what lots of cart-wheels we'd have to spin!"
"But what did Monsieur Vermoncey say to you?"
"Pardi! he says like this: 'Tell me, my good man; your comrade who used to stand yonder, young Paul, is never in his place now; what has become of him? is he sick?'—I wasn't fool enough to tell him the truth, you understand, so I says: 'No, monsieur; he hasn't been coming here for some time, and I think he's given up the business. But I am here, monsieur, to do any errands you want done; tell me what you want, and I'll go.'—'I was anxious to see your comrade and talk to him,' says he; 'I take an interest in him; where does he live? can you give me his address?'—'Wait a minute,' says I; 'he lives in a street I don't know the name of, but I think it's No. 2 or No. 4—an even number, anyway.'—At that, my man went off as if he was mad, and I says to myself: 'Sold again!'"
"But if he really has business with Paul—why not send him to him?"
"Not much! Catch me sending customers to others, when we're short of 'em ourselves! that would be too soft. And, besides, did he ever tell us his address, the fox? do we know where he lives?"