"Yes, he told me that—what next? explain yourself!" said Frédéric, impatient at Dubourg's roundabout way of reaching the facts.
"Gently! I am in no condition to go so fast, my dear Frédéric.—Well, I started out in a cab last night, after making a careful toilet."
"Yes; I noticed that you took one of my coats."
"You know perfectly well that I lost my wardrobe with my berlin."
"Well?"
"By some fatality, it happened that I put the purse containing the whole of our fortune in the pocket of your coat."
"Ah! this begins to look bad," whispered Frédéric, while Ménard, even more disturbed than he, began to draw his chair nearer.
"Well? go on."
"Well, monsieur le baron?"
"Well, my dear and noble friends, on leaving that brilliant society, where, to tell the truth, I stayed rather late, I found no carriage at the door. I was alone, in a street that I did not know. Suddenly four cutthroats leaped upon me. Alas! I had no weapons, but I defended myself like a lion. But all in vain! They beat me and threw me down, and the worst of it is that they robbed me of all the money I had about me."