"Here I am, messieurs. Oh! a man has to show some consideration. Let us be fickle, if you will, but we must not forget to be gallant; that is my nature." While the young men walked away, the messengers came together again. Sans-Cravate held up the five-franc piece he had received, crying: "Paid in advance! a cart-wheel! what do you think of that! There's a generous young man for you! I would fight for him." "But you probably have got to go a long way for him," said Jean Ficelle, with affected indifference. "Oh, no! nothing at all. First to Rue Neuve-Vivienne--only two steps; then to his house on Rue Caumartin, and from there to the Maison-Dorée. It's all right in the quarter." Jean Ficelle's eyes twinkled when he learned that Sans-Cravate was going to Rue Neuve-Vivienne, and he made haste to say: "I have got to go much farther than that--Faubourg Saint-Honoré--and I ain't paid in advance." "And I, too," said Paul, placing his _crochets_ behind a porte cochère, "have got a long way to go, and I'm afraid it will take a long while." "Where are you going?" asked Jean Ficelle. "The gentleman who employed me told me not to talk; so it doesn't seem to me that I ought to tell where he sends me." "Bah! you sneak!" muttered Jean, with a shrug. "Well, my friends," said Sans-Cravate, as he donned his fur cap, "the day ends well. I don't know whether you'll be paid as generously as me; but, at all events, I'll treat; let's have supper together to-night at my regular little wine shop on Rue Saint-Lazare. Does that hit you?" "It does me," replied Jean Ficelle; "we'll meet there to-night, then; it's agreed." "I can't," said Paul; "I have business this evening; I must go to see a certain person, a long way from here, and----" "Nonsense, Paul! I won't listen to such reasons as that; you can attend to your business to-morrow. I want you to have supper with us. I've invited you two or three times, and you always refuse. _Crédié!_ if you don't come to-night, I shall think you're proud, and afraid of lowering yourself by sitting at the same table with me." "Proud! proud of what, for God's sake?" muttered Jean, in so low a tone that Paul could not hear him. The latter hesitated a moment before replying: "Oh! Sans-Cravate, you surely can't think that I am proud. Am I not a messenger, like you?" "Very well, then; you'll come, that's settled. I must be off and do my errands. By the way, friends, if one of you sees Bastringuette before I do, just tell her where we sup. If we should feast without her, I should be a dead man to-morrow." As he spoke, Sans-Cravate started off along the boulevard. Jean Ficelle waited a short time, then took the same direction, muttering: "To be afraid that a woman will scold you, and not dare to treat yourself without her! that must be pleasant, on my word! And he calls himself a man! I call him a milksop. The real men aren't those who strike the hardest--but the sly dogs who know how to make dupes."