"I am going to take you with us; we will breakfast together, yes, and dine too, if you have time; and while we are at the table, I’ll tell you my plans, my ideas.—Look, here’s a coat that I bought yesterday ready-made; I was in a hurry to have a new one. It fits me rather well, eh?—Let us go downstairs, and I’ll show you my cabriolet."
"What! have you bought a cabriolet and horses, already?"
"No, I have hired until I can buy them. I must have other lodgings; I can’t keep my cabriolet in my present fourth floor apartment; I am going to look for one with a stable and carriage house.—Mon Dieu! how many things I have to do! Really, I had no idea that wealth kept one so busy."
Alfred and Edouard glanced at each other with a smile; then they followed Robineau, who could not keep still, but ran through the rooms puffing like an ox.
They went downstairs, Robineau in the lead; he called his servant and shouted to him to get up behind his carriage.
"We shall founder your horse," said Alfred; "I might take my own cabriolet for Edouard and myself."
"No, no," said Robineau, "I prefer to go together. My horse is strong; at all events, if he isn’t a good one, I’ll make them give me another to-morrow. Oh! I see to it that I am well served, I do!—Get up behind, François; I will drive."
They all entered Robineau’s cabriolet; he seated himself in the middle, took the reins and essayed to drive, because he was convinced that as soon as one is rich, one knows everything by instinct. He plied the whip vigorously, pulled the reins this way and that, and tormented his horse, who grazed curbstones and pedestrians every instant; and while his companions laughed at his exertions and at his manner of driving, he locked his wheel in the wheel of a cab, while trying to avoid a dray.
The cabman swore and said that he must be a duffer to run into his wheel; Robineau swore too, in order not to seem to be in the wrong; but his oaths did not suffice to extricate him from the fix in which he had involved himself; and, realizing that he would never get out of the tangle himself, he handed the reins to Alfred, saying:
"Do me the favor to drive, my dear fellow, for I am so engrossed by my affairs that I might mistake the road."