“It was not that I had imagined which caused the excitement, but something else.”
“What was it then? You said you knew it.”
“I was referring to something else that Paris was thinking of to-day.”
The idiot did not yet understand me.
“Some more news! How on earth did you manage to pick them up? Can you guess what it can be, your reverence? Come, pray let me know. You cannot imagine how fond I am of a piece of news. I will repeat it to the President, it will amuse him.”
And he uttered a hundred more platitudes, turning to the priest and to myself. I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well,” continued he, “what are you thinking of?”
“I was thinking,” answered I, “that I shall think no more this evening!”
“Ah! that is what is troubling you; you are cast down. Come, cheer up; Mr. Castaing talked all the way.”
Then, after a pause, he continued: “I escorted Mr. Papavoine; he wore his otter-skin cap, and smoked all the way. As to those young people from Rochelle, they talked to each other the whole time.”