He had not long to wait. After a small number of persons had left the place, the door opened and the man in the gray felt hat appeared, stopped on the threshold, and, as Bernardet had done, scanned the horizon and the street. Bernardet turned his back and seemed to be walking away from the wine shop, leaving the man free. With a keen glance or two over his shoulder toward him, Bernardet crossed the street and hurried along at a rapid pace, in order to gain on the young man, and by this manoeuvre to find himself directly in front of the unknown. The man seemed to hesitate, walked quickly down the Boulevard a few steps toward the Place Pigalle, in the direction where Rovère's apartments were, but suddenly stopped, turned on his heel, repassed the Cabaret du Squelette, and went toward the Moulin Rouge, which at first, Bernardet thought, he was about to enter. As he stood there the vanes of the Moulin Rouge, turning about, lighted up the windows of the opposite buildings and made them look as if they were on fire. At last, obeying another impulse, he suddenly crossed the Boulevard, as if to return into Paris, leaving Montmartre, the cabarets, and Rovère's house behind him. He walked briskly along, and ran against a man--a little man--whom he had not noticed, who seemed to suddenly detach himself from the wall, and who fell against his breast, hiccoughing and cursing in vicious tones. "Imbecile!" The young man wished to push away the intoxicated man who, with hat over his eyes, clung to him and kept repeating: "The street--the street--is it not free--the street?" Yes, it was certainly a drunken man. Not a man in a smock, but a little fellow, a bourgeois, with hat askew and thick voice. "I--I am not stopping you. The street is free--I tell you!" "Well, if it is free, I want it!" The voice was vigorous, but showed sudden anger, a strident tone, a slight foreign accent, Spanish, perhaps. The drunken man probably thought him insolent for, still hiccoughing, he answered: "Oh, you want it, do you? You want it? I want it! The king says 'we wish!' don't you know?" With another movement, he lost his equilibrium and half fell, his head hanging over, and he clutched the man he held in a sudden embrace. "It is mine also--the street--you know!" With sudden violence, the man disembarrassed himself of this caressing creature; he thrust aside his clinging arms with a movement so quick and strong that the intoxicated man, this time, fell, his hat rolled into the gutter, and he lay on the sidewalk. But immediately, with a bound, he was on his feet, and as the man went calmly on his way, he followed him, seized his coat and clutched him so tightly that he could not proceed. "Pardon;" he said, "you cannot go away like that!" Then, as the light from a gas lamp fell on the little man's face, the young man recognized his neighbor of the cabaret, who had said to him: "See, that is how Rovère must look!"