Madame Plays continues to disregard her husband's rights; but she cannot endure the sight of Tobie; she holds him in horror, because she believes that he killed Albert. Young Pigeonnier consoles himself for the rigor of the superb Herminie with Aunt Abraham's fortune and his reputation for valor. On the day before his departure for Auvergne with his sister and Bastringuette, Sans-Cravate saw two men in the street, handcuffed together, on their way to the Préfecture, escorted by gendarmes. He recognized Laboussole and Jean Ficelle. The latter seemed a little abashed to be seen with such an escort; but Monsieur Laboussole kept up a continual outcry of: "It's a mistake of the gendarmes; they take us for somebody else! That trick's been played on me seven or eight times before!" "That's how I should have ended, perhaps," thought Sans-Cravate, as he looked after them, "if I'd listened to that ne'er-do-well's advice! for there's no mistake about it, when a man keeps going on sprees, and never works, he seldom comes to a good end." LITTLE STREAMS I FOUR AT THE RENDEZVOUS It was just five o'clock in the afternoon, when a fashionably dressed young man, of comely aspect, and possessed of an attractive countenance, although his large blue eyes sometimes expressed a decided penchant for raillery, entered the café which stands, or stood, at the corner of Faubourg Poissonnière and the boulevard, on the right as you turn into the latter. The young man looked into the first room, then into the others in succession, and at last said to himself: "No one! not a single one of them has come! Probably not a single one of them will come! Five years is quite long enough to forget an appointment. However, I remembered it. I am sure that they are not all dead, for I met Dodichet within two months, and I saw Dubotté at the theatre less than a week ago. Lucien is the only one I haven't heard of for some time. Well, I'll wait a while. Everyone is entitled to the fifteen minutes' grace." And the young man, whose name was Adhémar Monbrun, seated himself at a table, took up a newspaper, ordered a _petit verre_ of chartreuse, and read a review of the play which had had a successful first performance the night before, but which the newspaper critic abused because the author was not a friend of his. Which fact, luckily, was not likely to prevent the play from making its way and achieving a long run, because the public was beginning to take at their true value the articles of those aristarchs of the press, who took for their motto, generally speaking: "No one shall be allowed to have any cleverness except ourselves and our friends." Adhémar had not been reading the paper two minutes, when a man, who had just entered the café, walked straight to the table at which he was seated, and tapped him on the shoulder, saying: