"The deuce!" he murmured; "here's a contretemps I didn't expect. But, damn the odds! Phœbus has a very nice little wife; I must pay my court to her. Let's get over the recognition."
He went straight up to Dubotté, who was already making eyes at Aldegonde, and cried:
"Halloo! Dubotté, my dear old friend! By Jove! what a pleasant surprise! How are you, Dubotté? is this your good wife you have brought with you? Pray present me to her, my dear friend, so that I may congratulate her on her husband."
Philémon Dubotté uttered an exclamation of surprise when he recognized Dodichet, who had already seized his hand and was shaking it violently.
"By what chance are you here?" he asked.—"How did you ever come to know this scamp of a Dodichet, my dear Mirotaine?"
"What's that? Scamp? I advise you to talk, my fair-haired Phœbus! If your wife wasn't here, I could tell some fine tales about you!"
Monsieur Mirotaine glanced from one to the other of the two friends with a disturbed expression, and seemed to be waiting for Dubotté to explain himself more definitely concerning the so-called commission merchant in sugar, whose free and easy manners were not at all agreeable to him. But Philémon suddenly spied between two hoopskirts the gentleman who had been introduced as a wealthy Italian count. He rushed up to him, crying:
"Well, well! I seem to be in a land of old acquaintances! Here's Monsieur Seringat the druggist, too, whom I had the pleasure of seeing at Pontoise a year ago.—Good-evening, Monsieur Seringat! how is your charming wife?"
When he heard himself called by his real name, Seringat turned pale, then purple; he put his hand to his head with a despairing gesture, and said in a faltering voice:
"No, that isn't true. I am Miflorès; I don't want to be anything but Miflorès! Let me alone; I don't know you!"