At sight of the two young men, the clerk’s face became amiable once more; he eagerly grasped the hand that the taller, fair-haired one offered him, and cried:
"Ah! it is Alfred de Marcey! Delighted to meet you.—And Monsieur Edouard! You are both well, I see.—You are going to dine, doubtless; and so am I."
That one of the two young men whose hand Robineau continued to shake, and whose noble and intelligent face denoted none the less a slight tendency to raillery, looked at our clerk with a smile; and there was in that smile a lurking expression of mischief at which a very sensitive person might have taken offence, had it not been that he instantly exclaimed in a cordial, merry tone:
"Dear Robineau!—Where on earth have you been of late?—My friend, such high-crowned hats are not worn now. Fie! that is last year’s style; but I suppose you wear it to add to your height, eh? And those coat-tails!—Ha! ha! You look like a noble father. Who in the devil makes your clothes? Do you know that you are half a century behind the times?"
Robineau took all these jesting remarks in very good part; and, releasing the young man’s hand at last, he rejoined good-humoredly:
"It’s a very easy matter for you gentlemen, rich as you are, with your fifty, or a hundred thousand francs a year, to follow all the fashions, to be on the watch for the slightest change in the cut of a coat or the shape of a hat; but a simple government clerk, who has only his salary of a hundred louis!—However, I must be promoted soon.—You can see that one must be orderly and economical, if one doesn’t want to run into debt. And then, I never paid much attention to my dress! I am not coquettish myself. Mon Dieu! so long as a man is dressed decently, what does it matter, after all, that a coat is a little longer or shorter?"
"Ah! you play the philosopher, Robineau! But what about those most symmetrical curls which you arrange so carefully on each side of your face?"
"Oh! those are natural! I never touch them."
"Nonsense! I’ll wager that you never go to bed without rolling your hair in curl-papers!"
"Well! upon my word!"