“How are you, Robine?” exclaimed Gavard.

Robine silently thrust out his hand, without making any reply, though his eyes softened into a slight smile of welcome.  Then he let his chin drop on to the knob of his cane again, and looked at Florent over his beer.  Florent had made Gavard swear to keep his story a secret for fear of some dangerous indiscretion; and he was not displeased to observe a touch of distrust in the discreet demeanour of the gentleman with the heavy beard.  However, he was really mistaken in this, for Robine never talked more than he did now.  He was always the first to arrive, just as the clock struck eight; and he always sat in the same corner, never letting go his hold of his cane, and never taking off either his hat or his overcoat.  No one had ever seen him without his hat upon his head.  He remained there listening to the talk of the others till midnight, taking four hours to empty his mug of beer, and gazing successively at the different speakers as though he heard them with his eyes.  When Florent afterwards questioned Gavard about Robine, the poultry dealer spoke of the latter as though he held him in high esteem.  Robine, he asserted, was an extremely clever and able man, and, though he was unable to say exactly where he had given proof of his hostility to the established order of things, he declared that he was one of the most dreaded of the Government’s opponents.  He lived in the Rue Saint Denis, in rooms to which no one as a rule could gain admission.  The poultry dealer, however, asserted that he himself had once been in them.  The wax floors, he said, were protected by strips of green linen; and there were covers over the furniture, and an alabaster timepiece with columns.  He had caught a glimpse of the back of a lady, who was just disappearing through one doorway as he was entering by another, and had taken her to be Madame Robine.  She appeared to be an old lady of very genteel appearance, with her hair arranged in corkscrew curls; but of this he could not be quite certain.  No one knew why they had taken up their abode amidst all the uproar of a business neighbourhood; for the husband did nothing at all, spending his days no one knew how and living on no one knew what, though he made his appearance every evening as though he were tired but delighted with some excursion into the highest regions of politics.

“Well, have you read the speech from the throne?” asked Gavard, taking up a newspaper that was lying on the table.

Robine shrugged his shoulders.  Just at that moment, however, the door of the glazed partition clattered noisily, and a hunchback made his appearance.  Florent at once recognised the deformed crier of the fish market, though his hands were now washed and he was neatly dressed, with his neck encircled by a great red muffler, one end of which hung down over his hump like the skirt of a Venetian cloak.

“Ah, here’s Logre!” exclaimed the poultry dealer.  “Now we shall hear what he thinks about the speech from the throne.”