"Signed--the devil take me if I can read it--Dubois or Dubosc.--But the thousand-franc note is inside all right; here it is!" "Ah! what good luck, monsieur! how happy it makes me for you!" said Violette. "Name of an--excuse me, bourgeois, but I am so glad that I brought that letter for you!" "Thanks, my friends, thanks, I am trying to remember--Yes, Juvigny did owe me money--I can't remember just how much; but when I inquired about him a few months ago, I was told that he was travelling." "He must have sent word to this person to send you this sum, monsieur." "Faith! I hardly expected this restitution. The money arrives most opportunely, but I can't get over my surprise!" "You see, monsieur, that I told you that your dream meant good luck." "You can buy all the syrup of Poupee that you want now, bourgeois." "Yes, my boy, and my little neighbor will be kind enough to do that for me, and change this note. Here, my dear, is the note, here's the thousand francs which seems to have fallen from heaven!" "Ah! I have a strong suspicion where it fell from, myself!" thought Violette as she left the room. XLII THE PIE Ten days after the receipt of the letter containing the thousand francs, Roncherolle was walking on the boulevard, alert and active, feeling not a trace of his gout, and wrapped in a warm, stylish overcoat, with a new hat on his head, patent leather shoes on his feet, in a word, dressed with a care and elegance which changed him completely and made him look almost like a young man. In front of the Gymnase Theatre, Roncherolle felt a hand on his arm, and he turned and recognized his former neighbor, young Alfred de Saint-Arthur. "Ah! good-morning, my dear monsieur, delighted to meet you!" "Good-morning, my dear Monsieur de Roncherolle. I can no longer say my neighbor, for you are not my neighbor now. You went off like a bomb without telling me, without leaving me your address; that was very unkind. That idiot of a Beauvinet,--you know, the young man at the hotel,--insisted upon it that you lived at Passage I-don't-know-where. Ah! that was a good one! that was very good!" "You didn't try to find me at that place?" "Oh, no! I wasn't taken in by that blockhead of a Beauvinet. I said to myself: 'My neighbor must have had reasons for moving and not leaving his address; such things happen every day, and indeed I think that it may happen to me very soon.'--But I regretted you all the same; on my word of honor I regretted you." "That is too kind of you." "But there was someone who regretted you much more than I did. Can't you guess?" "Faith, no." "It was Zizi--you know--Zizi Dutaillis." "Oh, yes! I remember perfectly--a very agreeable little woman."