It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon; Sans-Cravate, who had done a good day's work the day before, carrying billets-doux for several young men of fashion, who are always generous when they are in good humor, had gone off to walk as usual with Jean Ficelle, who led him toward Pont d'Austerlitz, to the place where games of chance were usually in operation.

As they walked along, the two friends, who had already refreshed themselves several times, talked with much animation; and the amusing part of it was that while one of them talked on one subject, the other talked on another, and neither of them listened or answered; which did not prevent them from going on.

"Yes!" said Sans-Cravate; "I don't think any more of her than if I'd never known her. Damme! if anybody should ask me now what color Bastringuette's eyes are, I should be hard put to it to answer. I don't remember."

"And you see," said Jean Ficelle, "there is people who say that you never win at cards. But that's all nonsense! and the proof is that I might have made my fortune if I hadn't been a coward."

"But to say that she wasn't pretty, that there wasn't something alluring about her—I should lie, if I denied it. But all women have that. Parbleu! you only have to be in love to find it out."

"Look you, I'll give you a comparison: You haven't got any money, and you stake what you have—then you win! But if you have anything, you're afraid of losing it; so you won't risk it, and you miss the chance of making a fortune."

"And that fellow who's always looking at me, and acts as if he wanted to speak to me. Oh! just let him come—I'll give him a warm reception! It ain't that I've seen him with Bastringuette. No, I'll have to admit that; since that day on Rue Barbette, when we met Paul dressed like a swell, and Bastringuette a little farther on—I've never seen him with her, and they do well to keep out of sight! For if they should act as if they meant to laugh at me—why, by heaven! it would go hard with 'em!"

"And then, you see, there's some who are mighty smart—they always win. I know one fellow—and he's a great swell—who makes six francs a day with biribi; that's a trade that would suit me down to the ground!"

Suddenly Jean Ficelle put his hand on his comrade's arm and stopped him, saying:

"Look, they're already at it, the rascals! They go to work early, they're no sluggards!"

The messengers had reached the river bank, near a game of table-basse, run by a tall fellow whose tongue was never at rest; he bewildered his audience by his incessant chatter.

A number of men of somewhat forbidding aspect were gathered about the game. But as two countrymen approached, the spectators made room for them; and the sharper offered them a dicebox with some little balls, crying:

"Come, messieurs, try your luck! every throw wins something, and it's only twenty sous a throw; and for twenty sous, if you choose, you can win a magnificent silver repeating watch, or a cover of the same metal, which you can have the pleasure of presenting to your good wife; or a thimble,—also of the same metal,—with which you can do homage to your venerable mother, if you are fortunate enough to possess her still."

The peasants could not resist the temptation; one of them took the dicebox and threw the balls, and Jean-Pierre counted. (Jean-Pierre is the sobriquet by which these charlatans call one another.) He counted with amazing facility and dexterity; his addition always seemed perfectly fair, but no one ever won prizes worth more than two or three sous.

"Come, messieurs, keep on, try your luck again," cried Jean-Pierre; "that throw turned out well for Jean-Pierre, but the luck will change; you'll win the big prizes, messieurs! and Jean-Pierre will be in the hole. But he will always be only too happy to fulfil his engagements with the honorable company."

The peasant, who had won only a box of matches for his twenty sous, threw again, in the hope of having better luck, and the product of the sale of his cabbages, beans, and strawberries soon passed into Jean-Pierre's pockets.

While the bumpkin stood rooted to the spot, dazed by the loss of his money, a mechanic approached the table, and, after looking on for some time, observed:

"I like biribi better."

"Here you are, monsieur! here's the biribi you're looking for!" cried the sharper, producing three cards from an apron which he wore, and in which was an enormous pocket whose gaping mouth seemed ready to engulf all the silver and loose change of the assembled company.

While the sharper arranged his biribi table, and made his three cards fly about with remarkable dexterity, another mechanic, who had followed his comrade, said to him:

"Come away, BenoÎt; don't bet! Those games are a fraud, you know that everyone always loses."

"What's that, monsieur, you say that everyone always loses with me?" cried the croupier, having first cleared his throat in order to speak more volubly. "Why, in that case, you can't have been present at all the throws I lost just now. Ask the honorable company here present if I haven't paid out more than a hundred francs within half an hour—yes, monsieur, a hundred francs! And I don't put it too high, and I don't count a silver watch that that gentleman over yonder won from me—the one with the handsome whiskers; and ear-rings—of pure gold, hall-marked, that I redeemed for twelve francs from that short young man who looks so happy, and who means to give the money to his virtuous mother, who has longed for a cup of chocolate for sixty years!—Isn't this so, my little man?—You see, he shows you his twelve francs and presses them to his heart. Oh, no! no one ever wins with me, messieurs! But, I tell you, this game is absolutely free from trickery; it is simply for you to guess where the card called biribi is. It isn't my fault when you guess wrong. The sums I have already lost are enormous! But if I should tell you that I always lose, I should lie; no, messieurs, I don't always lose; but you have an even chance, if you have a sharp eye, if you pick it out of three cards—that's very few—three—only three cards; if you pick out biribi, why, Jean-Pierre is certainly in the hole. Come, messieurs, make your bets! I pay cash, my pockets are well lined! there's plenty of the quibus! it rests with you whether it passes from my pockets into yours."

The gambler concluded his discourse by slapping the pocket which contained his money; and the workingman, bewildered by that torrent of words poured forth without pausing to take breath, made up his mind to try his luck; he followed with his eyes the three cards which Jean-Pierre moved about on the table, from right to left and left to right, with a rapidity which made the eyes ache; then, believing that he was sure of his card, he placed upon it all the money he had received for his week's wages, which was all that his family had to live upon.

"Will you take all that at once?" he cried excitedly.

"Why not, monsieur? Jean-Pierre never weakens; he takes whatever you choose—your clothes or your handkerchiefs, if you haven't any money! Jean-Pierre will do anything to please you."

"Let her go, then; that one's biribi! Turn it over."

The gambler turned the card—the workman had lost; he was crestfallen and speechless with dismay, and the peasant, who also had been stripped, laughed stupidly and said:

"He ain't any smarter than I am, he ain't."

Meanwhile, spurred on by Jean Ficelle, who claimed to be certain that he could tell him how to win, Sans-Cravate was about to give way to the temptation to try his hand at biribi, when a confederate ran up; he had sighted a police officer on the horizon. In an instant, the games were folded up and carried off by the Jean-Pierres, who ran as fast as their legs would carry them; while their dupes remained behind, feeling in their empty pockets, and trying to decide—one of them, whether he should return to his village without the proceeds of the sale of his produce; the other, whether he dared face his children, who would ask him for money with which to buy bread.

Sans-Cravate and Jean Ficelle walked away.

"We arrived too late," said the latter; "it's too bad! I have an idea that we would have broken the bank, and then what a spree we'd have had! we wouldn't have worked for a week!"

"For my part, I am glad I didn't play," said Sans-Cravate; "the money goes too fast that way; and then, too, gambling's a miserable business!"

"Oh! ouiche! as if a man mustn't have some fun out of life! weren't we born to enjoy ourselves? Only sneaks, like Paul, talk that way. For my part, I claim that gambling's the spice of life; look you, I'll give you a comparison——"

"Pshaw! there's a wine shop yonder; I like that better than your biribi."

As the two friends were about to enter the wine shop, a man behind them hailed them:

"So you're too proud to speak to a friend, eh?"

They both turned, and Jean Ficelle uttered a joyful exclamation.

"Why, it's Laboussole!" he said; "old Laboussole! Well, this is a surprise!"

It was, in fact, Monsieur Laboussole who stood before them; but his aspect was a little less shabby than formerly: he wore a frock-coat of chestnut-colored beaver, abnormally full, and so long that he almost walked on it; it was plain that the garment was not made for him, but that did not prevent him from carrying it with a swagger, and looking down at himself often with a complacent expression, as if admiring his coat. His hat was the same one; but instead of the strip of bed ticking for a cravat, Monsieur Laboussole wore a black stock, which was not absolutely new, but nevertheless imparted to its wearer a sort of bellicose aspect. Add a pair of moustaches which were as yet in their infancy, and which persisted in growing black on one side and gray on the other, and you can form an idea of Laboussole as he accosted the two messengers.

"Well, well! is it really you, old fellow?" continued Jean Ficelle, wringing Laboussole's hand. "It's a long time since I saw you—almost three months and a half."

"Yes," said Sans-Cravate, who seemed less delighted than his comrade by the meeting; "not since the day we drank together on Rue Saint-Lazare, and monsieur was arrested."

"Oh, yes! to be sure—I remember," said Laboussole, good-humoredly. "You were present at the time of my arrest, weren't you? A blunder, my boys, an unlucky blunder, and nothing else! They mistook me for another man; and after keeping me in prison two months, they let me go in a hurry. They went so far as to make apologies—which I accepted—but it was almighty unpleasant, all the same. I was tempted to go to law, to make a claim for damages and interest; but everybody said to me: 'We've never had a doubt of your innocence; society has always done you justice, and that ought to satisfy you.'"

"Pardi! I never believed you were guilty, and I've said so more than once to Sans-Cravate.—Ain't that so, Sans-Cravate? haven't I told you they did wrong to arrest Laboussole, because he was as white as my shirt?"

Sans-Cravate nodded his head; whereupon Laboussole seized his hand and shook it, saying:

"Your good opinion is very pleasant to me, my boys. Yes, I am quite as white as Jean Ficelle's shirt—perhaps a little whiter, even;—but I believe you were going into the wine shop; don't let me keep you."

"On the contrary, you're coming in to have a drink with us. Who ever heard of friends meeting without wetting their whistles?"

"With pleasure, my friends; let's go in; I was just thinking that I felt the need of moistening my lips."

The three men entered the wine shop. Jean Ficelle asked for a small private room, and they were shown into one where there were two tables, both unoccupied. Wine was brought, and the glasses were filled and emptied several times. Monsieur Laboussole seemed overjoyed to have met the two messengers; Jean Ficelle manifested equal satisfaction; and Sans-Cravate himself, after drinking three or four glasses of wine, became very good-humored.

"I say, old fellow," said Jean Ficelle, scrutinizing Laboussole, "seems to me, business must have been pretty good with you since we met. On my word, you're rigged out like a landholder of Ile Saint-Louis! Bigre! what style!"

"Yes," replied Laboussole, drawing himself up in his beaver coat. "I'm in a very pretty line of business now. I have a position in an enterprise that is just being started; I have an idea that I'm going to make my fortune."

"The devil! there's nothing cheap about you!"

"What sort of a business is it?" asked Sans-Cravate.

"It's something new and ingenious, my friends; imagine, if you please, that a party of capitalists have conceived the idea of forming a company to insure against fleas and all insects that devour mankind; for, as you probably know, mankind is being decimated by insects, and, if we don't look out, the world will come to an end that way. Now, then, the company has a capital stock of a million. With a million francs, you see, it would beat the devil if they couldn't wipe out all the fleas in Europe. It's a magnificent chance; the shares are going up, up at a frightful rate!"

"Oh! I say! that's a funny kind of insurance!"

"Messieurs, everything is insured nowadays: life, fortune, women—yes, messieurs, a company's being formed to guarantee the fidelity of your wives and mistresses! There won't be any more cuckolds, messieurs. Think what a vast enterprise! and what an age—that will have seen it! But they haven't succeeded yet in raising money enough to start the thing; they need a lot of money, so it seems. Speaking of mistresses, what's become of your sweetheart Bastringuette? I don't see her with you, my dear Sans-Cravate; has she got the smallpox?"

"Oh! I haven't seen anything of her for a long time," replied Sans-Cravate, with a frown; "nor thought of her, either."

"Oho! did she do—what I mentioned just now?"

"Apparently."

"Come, come! let's not talk about Bastringuette," cried Jean Ficelle. "You see, Laboussole, that it puts my comrade out of sorts."

"Oh! excuse me, my boys, excuse me! I was thoughtless; it was my friendship for you that misled me. Let's have a drink!"

"What's your position in the flea business, eh?"

"A very fine one—I am an inspector. We send clerks ahead to attend to destroying the insects; then I arrive at the house of the insured, I inspect the premises, I search everywhere; and after my visit, I defy you to find anything there at all."

"Are you required to have a moustache in your position, that you let yours grow?"

"It isn't absolutely required, but in all the best places moustaches are worn, and I felt that I owed that to myself. Your health, my bucks! To my pleasure at being in the bosom of my friends once more!"

Monsieur Laboussole's tone was becoming affectingly sentimental. They drank, and touched glasses; the bottles rapidly succeeded one another; their brains began to get heated, especially Sans-Cravate's, which took fire very easily. Ere long, Jean Ficelle called for a pack of cards.

"I'll play you a game of piquet, Laboussole," he cried; "piquet, the honest man's game—just for fun, to pass the time, and to see if you know how to play it."

"I play like an oyster," rejoined Laboussole; "but still I'll play whatever you say. Because I always assert that luck may come my way. Let's have a drink!"

The waiter brought the cards. Jean Ficelle took them and sat down opposite Laboussole.

"Sans-Cravate don't play," he said; "he don't like cards."

"Why shouldn't I play, eh?" cried Sans-Cravate, with a violent blow on the table. "Piquet! why, that's my favorite game; I'm very strong at it."

"Well, you shall play after a while," replied Jean Ficelle, winking at his vis-À-vis. "Let me give the inspector of fleas a beating first."

The game began; the players announced that they were playing for two francs the game, but no money was put up. Laboussole lost three games in succession; whereupon Jean Ficelle rose, with a laugh, and said:

"You certainly ain't on your game, old man. I've got six francs to eat up; that's not bad, and I don't want you to ruin yourself treating us."

Sans-Cravate took Jean Ficelle's place, after asking Laboussole:

"Have you had enough?"

"I! nonsense! do I ever cry baby? I'm always on deck when a friend proposes a game. Besides, as I said just now, luck may come my way; she's a female, so she ought to change often. What are we playing for?"

"Whatever you say."

"A thirty-sou piece——"

"The devil! that's rather high!"

"We must make the game interesting."

"All right; thirty sous it is."

The game began; Jean Ficelle took his stand behind Sans-Cravate. Monsieur Laboussole frequently looked up into the air, as if to invoke Fortune and implore her to smile upon him; but his eyes always met Jean Ficelle's, who signalled to him with his fingers.

Sans-Cravate lost the first game; and Monsieur Laboussole cried, with his most affable air:

"You see, my boys, luck may turn any time; that's what I rely on."

"My revenge!" cried Sans-Cravate.

"Always, my boy! always at your service; a well-bred card player never refuses a revenge, under penalty of being called a carotteur; and I've never been called that. But let's have some wine first and drink a bumper! Cards make me horribly thirsty."

Jean Ficelle undertook to fill the glasses. Sans-Cravate lost the second game, and demanded another, which he also lost; but Laboussole did not cease to exclaim:

"You play much better than I do; I can't imagine how I succeed in beating you!"

Sans-Cravate continued to demand his revenge, which Laboussole was always eager to accord; while Jean Ficelle took care that the glasses should be filled as soon as they were empty. The wine and the game soon bewildered Sans-Cravate to the point that he hardly knew what he was doing; his adversary, on the other hand, retained his sang-froid, and combined with it all his social talents. It was not long before Sans-Cravate found that he had lost all the money he had with him; he had not enough left to pay for the wine they had drunk, a part of which was chargeable to him.

"I'll pay for you, and you may owe it to me," said Jean Ficelle. "I am not capable of leaving a friend in a hole."

Sans-Cravate was astounded to find himself without a sou, for he had thirty francs in the morning. He felt in all his pockets, and cried:

"How's this? I have lost all my money! I want to keep on playing and make myself good! I'll play on credit."

But Laboussole moved his chair away from the table and rose, saying:

"I'd like nothing better than to give you your revenge, my boy, but this is the time of day when I have to attend to my duties. I have three houses to inspect to-day; and if a sign of an insect should be found in one of them to-morrow, I should lose my job. A job worth three thousand francs a year, with lodging, candles, and perquisites, don't grow on every bush. So I am obliged to leave you, my bucks; but we will meet again soon; I'll look you up at your place of business on the street corner, and I'll give our worthy friend Sans-Cravate all the revenge he wants. Au revoir, my friends!"

Monsieur Laboussole shook hands with each of the messengers. When he took Jean Ficelle's hand, he left in it half of the money he had won from his comrade,—probably in accordance with a previous understanding,—then left the room, saying:

"The next time I see you, friends, I'll give you a prospectus of our enterprise, so that you can see if you wouldn't like to take some shares. You can buy three shares for seven francs ten sous. Dividends of twenty per cent are guaranteed, and you get in addition portraits of the inspectors, which you can have framed, if you choose."

When Laboussole had gone, Jean Ficelle paid the bill and took Sans-Cravate away. He made no resistance; he was dazed by the wine he had drunk, and in a savage humor because he had lost his money, and, more than all, because he had gambled; for he knew in his heart that he was not acting the part of an honest man, and that Jean Ficelle's company was a constant incitement to evil. When a man's conscience speaks to him in that way, when he listens to its reproaches, and, while trying to drown its voice, is none the less dissatisfied with himself, there is still room for hope that he will return to the path of respectability.

The messengers had been walking together for some time, at a somewhat uncertain pace. Jean Ficelle, who loved to talk grandiloquently, and who credited himself with the art of hoodwinking his hearers, was presenting his comrade with a comparison to prove that the gambler who has lost all his money is much nearer to winning than he whose pockets are full. Sans-Cravate listened, without paying the slightest attention; his face was flushed, his expression alert and quarrelsome; he did not step aside for anyone, and he had more than once roughly jostled persons who passed him, and had nearly thrown them down.

"Look out what you're doing," said Jean Ficelle; "you're running into everybody! You'll get yourself into trouble!"

"Why don't they get out of the way? So much the worse for them! and if anyone isn't satisfied, just let him say so."

Suddenly, as they were walking along the canal, Sans-Cravate spied a man talking earnestly with a woman on a street corner. To utter an exclamation, come to a halt, and grasp his companion's arm so hard that he made him cry out, was a matter of an instant with Sans-Cravate.

"What in God's name's the matter?" demanded Jean Ficelle, almost terrified.

"It's him—and her! Yes, there they are together. Look—over there, at the corner of that street!"

Jean Ficelle looked; he recognized Paul talking to Bastringuette, with great earnestness and with an air of mystery.

"Pardi!" he exclaimed; "the turtle-doves have evidently met here by appointment—a long way from our neighborhood, so as not to be seen. How this fits in—when you was just saying that you'd never seen Paul with your fly-away! You see 'em now."

"Yes—and I still doubted! Ah! the villain! but he's got to pay me for his treachery!"

"What are you going to do? Come, Sans-Cravate, no knock-down fight. Just give him a clip—he well deserves it—and then, off we go! for, although there ain't many people passing, we must look out for loafers."

Sans-Cravate paid no heed to what his comrade said, but strode rapidly toward Paul; Bastringuette had left him, and he was walking away by the canal, when Sans-Cravate planted himself in front of him.

"You don't go any farther," he cried.

"Is it you, Sans-Cravate?" said Paul, looking up at him. "Great heaven! what's the matter? You look like a madman!"

"The matter is that you're a coward, a sneak!"

"Sans-Cravate!"

"Who was that with you a minute ago?"

"Bastringuette."

"And she ran off when she saw me, because she was afraid I'd give her a beating; but I don't beat women, I don't; I take my revenge on men—and you've got to fight with me!"

"Sans-Cravate, you are entirely mistaken—I give you my word of honor. I am not Bastringuette's lover; I have never mentioned the word love to her; besides, you know perfectly well that I am in love with another woman."

"That proves that you love two at once, that's all! Oh! you can't fool me any more with your wheedling ways. You're a blackguard, a traitor—I know you now. Come, coats off!"

"Sans-Cravate, you are not in your right mind at this moment. When you are not so excited, you will listen to me."

"No, no, not a word! I've swallowed your insults and been called a coward long enough. It's time to put an end to it."

"But you are mistaken; listen to me."

"I tell you, I won't; we must fight."

"I have told you before that I will not fight with you."

"Then I'll find a way to force you to."

"Yes, yes," said Jean Ficelle, from behind Sans-Cravate; "when a man entices a friend's mistress away from him, he can't refuse to give him satisfaction."

Paul cast a contemptuous glance at Jean Ficelle, and was about to answer him, when Sans-Cravate rushed at him like a madman and shook his fist in his face, crying:

"Will you fight?"

"No, for you are drunk! I am bound to overlook your foolish behavior."

"Oh! that's it, is it?"

And Sans-Cravate, utterly beside himself with jealousy, jumped at Paul, and, seizing him around the waist, threw him against the wall of the canal. The young man tried to save himself; but he stumbled and staggered, and, as he fell, his head struck a large paving stone which, unluckily, had been left lying there; its sharp edge made a deep wound, and the blood soon formed a pool about the wounded man.

Paul did not utter a sound; but Sans-Cravate, when he saw the blood flowing from the wound, stood as if turned to stone, horror-stricken, and his face became ghastly pale. Jean-Ficelle seized his arm.

"Let's be off!" he said; "let's be off! you've given him his dose, and that's all that was needed; now let's cut sticks."

"But he is wounded, he's bleeding," muttered Sans-Cravate.

"Bah! just a scratch—a trifle; that's none of our business."

"No, I won't leave him so; the least I can do is to carry him to that shop yonder, to have his wound dressed."

Sans-Cravate stooped over Paul, who, in addition to the wound on his head, had a badly bruised arm. To take off his jacket and turn back his shirt sleeve, to see whether the arm was seriously injured, was the work of an instant; as he bared Paul's forearm, he saw a small, perfectly distinct, blue cross. He was about to carry the wounded man to a shop near by, when Bastringuette came running up; seeing Paul wounded and bathed in blood, she cried:

"What an outrage! they have murdered him! poor boy! poor Paul!"

And the tall girl, kneeling on the ground, raised the messenger's head and examined it. At that moment, several persons, attracted by her outcry, drew near the wounded man. Once more Jean Ficelle pulled Sans-Cravate by the arm, saying:

"Well! they don't need you here, you see; he'll be well taken care of."

"That's true; you are right—as she is with him, there's nothing for me to do here. Let's go!"

As he spoke, Sans-Cravate hurried away with his comrade, not once turning his head to look back, as if he were afraid to meet Bastringuette's eye.