"I say, comrade, you don't keep up your end!" cried Sans-Cravate, forcing Paul to let him fill his glass. "Don't you enjoy being with your friends?" "There's no doubt about it," said Jean Ficelle; "Paul's acting damned queer. Anyone would say that it made him sore to be at the wine shop with us." "Why do you attribute such thoughts to me?" rejoined Paul; "am I any different from you two? What am I but a messenger, like you? As for the wine shop, as I come here very seldom, it's not surprising that I don't seem so much at home as you." "You say you don't come to the wine shop often?" cried Laboussole, eating his sausage with great zest. "You make a mistake, young man; the wine shop's the only place where one can enjoy life. It's the rendezvous of good company. I'd like never to leave it, myself!" Paul made no reply, but turned his back on Laboussole, while Jean added maliciously: "_Dame!_ a man don't go to the wine shop when he can play the swell! and I'm told that friend Paul has been seen now and then in a fine rig, with a hat instead of a cap." "Oho!" cried Sans-Cravate, emptying his glass; "how's that, comrade, do you play the swell now and then?" "It's all a mistake," murmured Paul, evidently annoyed by the question. "I've got good eyes, myself," said Laboussole, tilting his remnant of a hat over one ear. "Yes, I saw our friend, not more than a week ago, in the Marais, and he was dressed a good deal like a wholesale grocer." "Aha! aha!" said Bastringuette, fastening her great black eyes on Paul's face; "are you a prince disguised as a messenger? It seems to me that I've heard some such fairy tale as that. If that's so, and you want to make my fortune, don't be bashful--I'll accept." "I am nothing more than I appear to be," replied Paul, with a sigh; "but I have good eyes, too, and I saw monsieur in front of a game of chance under Pont d'Austerlitz." The ex-inspector was evidently embarrassed, and tried to pull his hat over his eyes; he glanced at Jean Ficelle and rejoined in a hoarse voice: "That may be! What is there surprising in that? A man goes out for a stroll, and stops in front of any show he sees. That's the way we sail down the river of life." "Come, let's drink and sing!" cried Sans-Cravate. "What's the odds how a man's dressed, or where he walks? Ain't we our own masters? ain't liberty as much for one man as another?" "That's my opinion," replied Laboussole, holding out his glass, the contents of which he swallowed with the facility of an Englishman drinking champagne. "You're what I call a man, you are, Sans-Cravate! and I'm your friend from this minute." "I don't doubt it!" muttered Bastringuette; "he's anybody's friend who'll treat him--eh, Paul? Well, Cupid, why don't you answer, instead of looking at the floor like a girl? Don't you know it's indecent not to look at a woman when she speaks to you?"