"Are you going to his funeral?"
"In these?" he cried holding up the lemon kids, "and this cravat?"
I noticed that he wore a floppy purple tie adorned with yellow spots, outside the lapels of his coat. It required more than two glances to take in all his detail.
"Besides," he added, "my distinguished patient was buried a fortnight ago."
He looked at me with an amused smile, enjoying my mystification like a child.
"You didn't know me."
"No, Master." I rubbed my eyes. "In fact I scarcely recognise you now."
"That is because I am again Gaston de Nérac," said he magnificently.
I had an idea that he must have come into the family fortune. But what had the death of the Comte de Verneuil to do with it? I picked up my bag again and walked with him to the exit. The hurrying crowd of passengers by my train and of clerks and work-people pouring from suburban platforms rendered conversation impossible.
At the station gates Paragot stood and watched the brisk life that swarmed up and down the Rue Saint-Lazare and the Rue du Havre. Paris awakens a couple of hours earlier than London. Clerks hurried by with flat leather portfolios under their arms. Servants trotted to market, or homewards, with the end of a long golden loaf protruding from their baskets. Work-girls sped by in all directions. Omnibuses lumbered along as at midday. Before the great cafés opposite, the tables were already set out on the terrace and the awnings lowered, and white-aproned waiters stood expectant. The whole scene was bathed in the gay morning sunshine.