"You are serious?" demanded Cobb. "He's to go, is he? With your watch? All right!"
He let go the scraggy neck which he held in the fork of his hand. They were, by this time, ringed about by spectators, but the thief was not less expert with crowds than with pockets. He was no sooner loose than he seemed to merge into the folk about, to pass through and beyond them like a vapor. Heads turned, feet shuffled. Savinien came about ponderously like a battleship in narrow waters, but the thief was gone.
"Tiens!" ejaculated someone, and there was laughter.
Savinien's arm insinuated itself through Cobb's elbow.
"Let us go where we can sit down," said the poet. "You are puzzled— not? But I will explain you all that."
"It wasn't a bet, was it?" asked Cobb.
The poet laughed gently. "That possibility alarms you?" he suggested. "But it was not a bet; it is more vital than that. I will tell you when we sit down."
At Savinien's slow pace they came at last to small marble-topped tables under a striped awning. Savinien, with loud gasps, let himself down upon an exiguous chair, rested both fat hands upon the head of his stick, and smiled ruefully across the table at Cobb. A tinge of blue had come out around his lips.
"Even to walk," he gasped, "that discomposes me, as you see. It is terrible."
"Take it easy," counseled Cobb.