“Yes, but a shop?  Why a shop?” Risler timidly ventured to ask.

“Why a shop?—­why a shop?” repeated M. Chebe, red as an Easter egg, and raising his voice to its highest pitch.  “Why, because I’m a merchant, Monsieur Risler, a merchant and son of a merchant.  Oh!  I see what you’re coming at.  I have no business.  But whose fault is it?  If the people who shut me up at Montrouge, at the gates of Bicetre, like a paralytic, had had the good sense to furnish me with the money to start in business—­”

At that point Risler succeeded in silencing him, and thereafter only snatches of the conversation could be heard:  “a more convenient shop—­high ceilings—­better air—­future plans—­enormous business—­I will speak when the time comes—­many people will be astonished.”

As he caught these fragments of sentences, Delobelle became more and more absorbed in his estimates, presenting the eloquent back of the man who is not listening.  Risler, sorely perplexed, slowly sipped his beer from time to time to keep himself, in countenance.

At last, when M. Chebe had grown calm, and with good reason, his son-in-law turned with a smile to the illustrious Delobelle, and met the stern, impassive glance which seemed to say, “Well! what of me?”

“Ah!  Mon Dieu!—­that is true,” thought the poor fellow.

Changing at once his chair and his glass, he took his seat opposite the actor.  But M. Chebe had not Delobelle’s courtesy.  Instead of discreetly moving away, he took his glass and joined the others, so that the great man, unwilling to speak before him, solemnly replaced his documents in his pocket a second time, saying to Risler: 

“We will talk this over later.”

Very much later, in truth, for M. Chebe had reflected: 

“My son-in-law is so good-natured!  If I leave him with this swindler, who knows what he may get out of him?”

And he remained on guard.  The actor was furious.  It was impossible to postpone the matter to some other day, for Risler told them that he was going the next day to spend the next month at Savigny.

“A month at Savigny!” exclaimed M. Chebe, incensed at the thought of his son-in-law escaping him.  “How about business?”

“Oh!  I shall come to Paris every day with Georges.  Monsieur Gardinois is very anxious to see his little Sidonie.”

M. Chebe shook his head.  He considered it very imprudent.  Business is business.  A man ought to be on the spot, always on the spot, in the breach.  Who could say?—­the factory might take fire in the night.  And he repeated sententiously:  “The eye of the master, my dear fellow, the eye of the master,” while the actor—­who was little better pleased by this intended departure—­opened his great eyes; giving them an expression at once cunning and authoritative, the veritable expression of the eye of the master.

At last, about midnight, the last Montrouge omnibus bore away the tyrannical father-in-law, and Delobelle was able to speak.