The peony face of Monsieur Bonticu did not blanch at this intelligence. Again he smiled with an infinite sadness.
"I appreciate," he said, "Monsieur Pantan's courtesy in affording me this opportunity, but, alas, he has not been in possession of the facts. By an almost unpardonable oversight I neglected to inform Monsieur that I had become the father not of one child, but of two. Twins, Messieurs. Would you care to inspect them?"
Monsieur Pantan's face was contorted with a wrath shocking to witness. He bit his lip; he clenched his fist.
"The end is not yet," he shouted. "No, no, Monsieur. By the thumbs of St. Front, I shall adopt another child."
At high noon next day three men in grave parade went down the Rue Victor Hugo and entered the shop of Monsieur Bonticu. Monsieur Pantan spoke.
"The adoption has been made," he announced. "Here are the papers. I, too, have a wife and three children. Shall we meet at dawn to-morrow?"
Monsieur Bonticu looked up from his account books with a rueful smile.
"Ah, if it could be," he said. "But it cannot be."
"It cannot be?" echoed Monsieur Pantan.
"No," said Monsieur Bonticu, sadly. "Last night my aged father-in-law came to live with me. He is a new, and weighty responsibility, Monsieur."