“Because—­pshaw!  I’ll tell you by-and-bye; but first I want to hear all about your quarrel.”

“What quarrel?”

“Your duel for Sarah.”

“That is to say, against Sarah!”

“Well, tell me all that passed; I heard of it only vaguely while abroad.”

“Well, I only strove to do a good action, and, according to custom, I was punished for it.  I heard it said that that little imbecile La Brede borrowed money from his little sister to lavish it upon that Sarah.  This was so unnatural that you may believe it first disgusted, and then irritated me.  One day at the club I could not resist saying, ’You are an ass, La Bride, to ruin yourself—­worse than that, to ruin your sister, for the sake of a snail, as little sympathetic as Sarah, a girl who always has a cold in her head, and who has already deceived you.’  ‘Deceived me!’ cried La Brede, waving his long arms.  ’Deceived me! and with whom?’—­’With me.’  As he knew I never lied, he panted for my life.  Luckily my life is a tough one.”

“You put him in bed for three months, I hear.”

“Almost as long as that, yes.  And now, my friend, do me a service.  I am a bear, a savage, a ghost!  Assist me to return to life.  Let us go and sup with some sprightly people whose virtue is extraordinary.”

“Agreed!  That is recommended by my physician.”

“From Cairo?  Nothing could be better, my Prince.”

Half an hour later Louis de Camors, the Prince d’Errol, and a half-dozen guests of both sexes, took possession of an apartment, the closed doors of which we must respect.

Next morning, at gray dawn, the party was about to disperse; and at the moment a ragpicker, with a gray beard, was wandering up and down before the restaurant, raking with his hook in the refuse that awaited the public sweepers.  In closing his purse, with an unsteady hand, Camors let fall a shining louis d’or, which rolled into the mud on the sidewalk.  The ragpicker looked up with a timid smile.

“Ah!  Monsieur,” he said, “what falls into the trench should belong to the soldier.”

“Pick it up with your teeth, then,” answered Camors, laughing, “and it is yours.”

The man hesitated, flushed under his sunburned cheeks, and threw a look of deadly hatred upon the laughing group round him.  Then he knelt, buried his chest in the mire, and sprang up next moment with the coin clenched between his sharp white teeth.  The spectators applauded.  The chiffonnier smiled a dark smile, and turned away.

“Hello, my friend!” cried Camors, touching his arm, “would you like to earn five Louis?  If so, give me a knock-down blow.  That will give you pleasure and do me good.”

The man turned, looked him steadily in the eye, then suddenly dealt him such a blow in the face that he reeled against the opposite wall.  The young men standing by made a movement to fall upon the graybeard.

“Let no one harm him!” cried Camors.  “Here, my man, are your hundred francs.”