"Sacredieu! this is too much! By heaven! I have had enough of that woman; a slap in the face the other day, and now a kick! What under heaven will it be the next time? So she is mad because I have killed Albert! She plays little Hermione, and treats me like Orestes. To be sure, Orestes didn't receive a kick in the rump; she has interpolated that.--So you mourn Albert's death, do you?--Very good! just to punish her, I won't tell her it isn't true. _Bigre!_ what a love affair! I don't want any more of it, thanks!" Holding his hand to the injured part, Tobie betook himself to Albert's house, to get the five hundred francs which he had promised to lend him, and which might well act as an antidote to the affront he had undergone. But when he inquired for his friend, the servant said: "Monsieur Albert started for Normandie half an hour ago." "He has gone away, and left nothing for me?" "No, monsieur." Tobie was tempted to beat his brains out against the wall. "This caps the climax," he said to himself, as he walked away; "I have two sous left! Perhaps I had better go and jingle them in Aunt Abraham's ear, to induce her to make me a partner in her business!" [Illustration: _Copyright 1903 by G. Barrie & Sons._ _THE RENDEZVOUS AT THE CAFÉ_ _Another person had, in fact, entered the café. It was a man of twenty-six or twenty-seven years, of medium height, well set up, with dark brown hair, a slightly flushed face, sharp eyes, turned-up nose, and a huge mouth--everything, in short, which denotes a jovial companion._] NOVELS BY Paul de Kock VOLUME IV SANS-CRAVATE; OR, THE MESSENGERS VOL. II LITTLE STREAMS PRINTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH [Illustration] GEORGE BARRIE'S SONS THE JEFFERSON PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK _Copyrighted, 1903-1904, by G. B. & Sons._ SANS-CRAVATE; OR, THE MESSENGERS [CONTINUED] XXIII A NEW PATRON Several days had passed since Albert left Paris. His sudden departure had greatly surprised his friends and boon companions, and, as they did not know the cause of it, each of them formed his own conjectures. "He probably thought that there wasn't enough sport in Paris," said Mouillot, "and has gone elsewhere in search of adventures." "I have no doubt that he is following some woman who has magnetized him," observed Monsieur Dupétrain; "someone who can make him go to the end of the world by the power of her magnetic fluid." Balivan, distraught as always, exclaimed at first: "What! Albert has left Paris? That's very strange! Can he have gone on a sketching trip?"--But on the next and following days, as he smoked his cigar on the boulevard, he never failed to say: "It's a surprising thing--I haven't met Albert to-day." Monsieur Varinet, the young man with white eyebrows, and holder of Tobie's olive, said nothing at all.