Christophe went back utterly downcast, and buried himself in his room during the following days. He found it impossible to work. His heart sank as he saw that his small supply of money--the little sum that his mother had sent him, carefully wrapped up in a handkerchief at the bottom of his bag--was rapidly decreasing. He imposed a severe régime on himself. He only went down in the evening to dinner in the little pot-house, where he quickly became known to the frequenters of it as the "Prussian" or "Sauerkraut." With frightful effort, he wrote two or three letters to French musicians whose names he knew hazily. One of them had been dead for ten years. He asked them to be so kind as to give him a hearing. His spelling was wild, and his style was complicated by those long inversions and ceremonious formulæ which are the custom in Germany. He addressed his letters: "To the Palace of the Academy of France." The only man to read his gave it to his friends as a joke. After a week Christophe went once more to the publisher's office. This time he was in luck. He met Sylvain Kohn going out, on the doorstep. Kohn made a face as he saw that he was caught: but Christophe was so happy that he did not see that. He took his hands in his usual uncouth way, and asked gaily: "You've been away? Did you have a good time?" Kohn said that he had had a very good time, but he did not unbend. Christophe went on: "I came, you know.... They told you, I suppose?... Well, any news? You mentioned my name? What did they say?" Kohn looked blank. Christophe was amazed at his frigid manner: he was not the same man. "I mentioned you," said Kohn: "but I haven't heard yet. I haven't had time. I have been very busy since I saw you--up to my ears in business. I don't know how I can get through. It is appalling. I shall be ill with it all." "Aren't you well?" asked Christophe anxiously and solicitously. Kohn looked at him slyly, and replied: "Not at all well. I don't know what is the matter, the last few days. I'm very unwell." "I'm so sorry," said Christophe, taking his arm. "Do be careful. You must rest. I'm so sorry to have been a bother to you. You should have told me. What is the matter with you, really?" He took Kohn's sham excuses so seriously that the little Jew was hard put to it to hide his amusement, and disarmed by his funny simplicity. Irony is so dear a pleasure to the Jews--(and a number of Christians in Paris are Jewish in this respect)--that they are indulgent with bores, and even with their enemies, if they give them the opportunity of tasting it at their expense. Besides, Kohn was touched by Christophe's interest in himself. He felt inclined to help him. "I've got an idea," he said. "While you are waiting for lessons, would you care to do some work for a music publisher?" Christophe accepted eagerly.