"You would not lose. I saw her at her house yesterday; she had given me a rendezvous. My affair is progressing, and on her return from the country, where she has gone for a few days, I hope that your friend will have nothing more to wish for." "Good! I congratulate you." There was a touch of irony in Monsieur Célestin's felicitations of his friend. Albert paid little attention to it, because he was accustomed to Célestin's manner, which always suggested that he was laughing at the person to whom he was speaking. That is a very clever way of concealing one's lack of merit--to pose as a scoffer or a _blagueur_, which are much the same thing. "I am very glad to see you; perhaps you can help me to find the person I want to see." "If you are looking for a faithful woman, I should find it very hard to direct you to one; for I don't know any." "No, not that; I simply want to know Tobie Pigeonnier's address." "The deuce! that's almost as hard to find as the other. In the first place, is it quite certain that little Tobie has any address? I believe he contents himself with perching, like the birds; he lights now here, now there." "Let's not joke; he told us that he lived on Rue de la Ferme-des-Mathurins." "True; but at what number?" "Ah! that I don't know." "It's very easy to say: 'I live on Rue de la Ferme-des-Mathurins, or Rue de la Paix, or Rue de Rivoli,'--when you confine yourself to that;--in that way, you can live in the most fashionable quarters of Paris. For my own part, I believe little Tobie has a nest in some closet on Rue du Pont-aux-Biches or Place du Chevalier-du-Guet. His hasty departure from our little party at Balivan's the night before last--after putting up a fetich for five hundred francs, that poor Varinet gave him change for---- Do you know, that looks rather shady to me. If he had lost the five hundred francs, it would be all right; you would say that it probably wasn't convenient for him to pay; but he lost only about fifty." "Didn't he go to pay Varinet the next day?" "I don't know, but I'll bet he didn't; however, we can soon find out, for there are Varinet and Balivan now, drinking chocolate at Tortoni's." Albert and Célestin entered the café and accosted their friends, just as Balivan was dipping his cigar in the chocolate, thinking that it was a roll. "Ah! here you are, you rakes!" cried Balivan; "have you been passing a night at the card table? What scandalous conduct! you are to blame for my not being able to do a stroke of work yesterday." "But you are working hard to-day, Balivan. Upon my word, you are eating a fine cigar with your chocolate, instead of a roll!" "Mon Dieu! so I am. Why do they make cigars of this shape? I took it for a _gaufre_,[I] and I adore _gaufres_ in chocolate." "We came to ask you about young Tobie, messieurs.--Have you seen him since night before last, Monsieur Varinet?" "Who in the devil is Monsieur Tobie?" queried the white-eyebrowed young man, in amazement.