“Ah! the poor fellow!”
“Both knees torn! he must have fallen.”
“You fell, didn’t you?”
“How does it happen, my son, that those trousers, which are almost new, are torn on both knees?”
“Well! now you know why I didn’t want to come in—you see that I was right. Am I presentable like this?”
“But, my son——”
“It is I who am to blame for everything!” cried Chambourdin; “I forced him to disclose his disaster. Strictly, I ought to lend him some trousers, but as I believe he has another pair, I prefer that he should wear his own.—Go, hapless victim of a slippery sidewalk, but don’t be long! something tells me that the soup is not far away.”
Little Astianax disappeared, and Monsieur Glumeau would have been glad to do as much, but his guests surrounded him and talked to him; he was hemmed in on all sides.
“Everybody must have come, is it not so, my dear friend?” said Chambourdin, offering him snuff in one of those snuff-boxes known as rat-tails.
“No, indeed, and it’s very lucky—otherwise there would be thirteen of us,” replied Glumeau, writhing about as inoffensively as possible.