"That is true," said Bossuet.
"Only see what eyes he makes!" Courfeyrac added.
"But whom the deuce is he following?"
"Some Mimi-Goton with flowers in her cap. He is in love."
"But," Bossuet observed, "I do not see any Mimi or any Goton, or any cap trimmed with flowers, in the street. There is not a single woman."
Courfeyrac looked, and exclaimed, "He is following a man."
A man wearing a cap, and whose gray beard could be distinguished, although his back was turned, was walking about twenty yards ahead of Marius. This man was dressed in a perfectly new great-coat, which was too large for him, and a frightful pair of ragged trousers all black with mud. Bossuet burst into a laugh.
"Who can the man be?"
"That?" Courfeyrac replied; "oh, he is a poet. Poets are fond of wearing the trousers of rabbit-skin pedlers and the coats of the Peers of France."
"Let us see where Marius is going," said Bossuet, "and where this man is going. Suppose we follow them, eh?"