"What do you say, villain? To whom are you speaking?" cried Robineau angrily.
"Oh! I beg your pardon, monseigneur and master," said Cunette, struggling to his feet; "I thought I was talking with my friend Vincent, and that is why——"
"Try not to have any more such fits of abstraction, and tell me if you know that vagabond who has planted himself like a post in front of the tower, and is looking so earnestly in this direction?"
Cunette staggered forward; Alfred and Edouard each held an arm to keep him from falling over the rail, and the concierge put out his head to look for the man in question.
"Well?" said Robineau after a moment.
"Well, what?" rejoined Cunette, gazing about with a drunken stare.
"Do you know that man?"
"I don’t see a man any more than I do a bottle!"
"What do you say, you blockhead? Don’t you see him at the foot of the tower?"
"Oh! what a fool I am! saving your presence, monseigneur, I took him for a vine."