"My good Monsieur Bubu le Vainqueur, you do me infinite honour, but until I have devoured the proceeds of my last crime I lead a life of elegant leisure."
We escaped from danger and reaching the side stood and looked at each other in stupefaction. Blanquette was the first to see him. She seized my arm and pointed.
"It is he! Sainte Vierge, it is he!"
It was he. He was sitting at a table a few yards off, and his companions were the fox-faced youth and the two girls over whom Blanquette had philosophised. He wore his silk hat. Brandy was in front of him. He seemed to be on familiar terms with his friends. For a long time we watched him, fascinated, not daring to accost him and yet unwilling to edge away out of his sight and make our escape from the ball. I saw that he was incredibly dirty. His beard of some days growth gave him a peculiarly grim appearance. His hat had rolled in the mud and was everything a silk hat ought not to be. His linen was black. Never had the garb of respectability been so battered into the vesture of disrepute.
Suddenly he caught sight of us. He hesitated for a moment; then waved us a bland, unashamed salutation. We went up the nearest steps to the gallery and waited. After a polite leave-taking he bowed to his companions, and reeled towards us. I knew by the familiar gait that he had had many cognacs and absinthes during the day.
But what in the name of sanity was he doing here?
"Mon dieu, mon dieu, qu'est-ce qu'il fait ici?" asked Blanquette.
I shook my head. It was stupefying.
"Eh bien, mes enfants, you have come to amuse yourselves, eh? I too, in the company of my excellent friend Bubu le Vainqueur, whose acquaintance together with that of his fair companions I would not advise you to cultivate."
"But Master," I gasped, "what has happened?"