On a certain afternoon, which, as we shall see, has some coincidence with the events recorded above, Laigle de Meaux was sensually leaning against the door-post of the Café Musain. He looked like a caryatid out for a holiday, and having nothing to carry but his reverie. Leaning on one's shoulder is a mode of lying down upright which is not disliked by dreamers. Laigle de Meaux was thinking, without melancholy, of a slight misadventure which had occurred to him on the previous day but one at the Law-school, and modified his personal plans for the future, which, as it was, were somewhat indistinct. Reverie does not prevent a cabriolet from passing, or a dreamer from noticing the cabriolet. Laigle, whose eyes were absently wandering, saw through this somnambulism a two-wheeled vehicle moving across the Place St. Michel at a foot-pace and apparently undecided. What did this cab want? Why was it going so slowly? Laigle looked at it, and saw inside a young man seated by the side of the driver, and in front of the young man a carpet-bag. The bag displayed to passers-by this name, written in large black letters on the card sewn to the cloth, MARIUS PONTMERCY. This name made Laigle change his attitude: he drew himself up, and shouted to the young man in the cab, "M. Marius Pontmercy!" The cab stopped, on being thus hailed, and the young man, who also appeared to be thinking deeply, raised his eyes. "Hilloh!" he said. "Are you M. Pontmercy?" "Yes." "I was looking for you," Laigle of Meaux continued. "How so?" asked Marius, for it was really he, who had just left his grandfather's and had before him a face which he saw for the first time. "I do not know you." "And I don't know you either." Marius fancied that he had to do with a practical joker, and, as he was not in the best of tempers at the moment, frowned. Laigle imperturbably continued,-- "You were not at lecture the day before yesterday!" "Very possibly." "It is certain." "Are you a student?" Marius asked. "Yes, sir, like yourself. The day before yesterday I entered the Law-school by chance; as you know, a man has an idea like that sometimes. The Professor was engaged in calling over the names, and you are aware how ridiculously strict they are in the school at the present moment. Upon the third call remaining unanswered, your name is erased from the list, and sixty francs are gone." Marius began to listen, and Laigle continued,--