"Fabantou."
"The actor,—all right."
It was lucky that Jondrette asked this, for at the same moment M. Leblanc turned to him, and said with the air of a person who is trying to remember the name,—
"I see that you are much to be pitied, Monsieur—"
"Fabantou," Jondrette quickly added.
"Monsieur Fabantou; yes, that is it, I remember."
"An actor, sir, who has been successful in his time."
Here Jondrette evidently believed the moment arrived to trap his philanthropist, and he shouted in a voice which had some of the bombast of the country showman, and the humility of the professional beggar, —"A pupil of Talma, sir! I am a pupil of Talma! Fortune smiled upon me formerly, but now, alas! the turn of misfortune has arrived. You see, my benefactor, we have no bread, no fire. My poor children have no fire. My sole chair without a seat! a pane of glass broken, in such weather as this! my wife in bed, ill!"
"Poor woman!" said M. Leblanc.
"My child hurt," Jondrette added.