“Struve may be out if we delay,” said Toto, getting into the vehicle wearily, and, as it was starting, Gaillard was forced to mount on the outside, where he sat with his handkerchief to his face as if his nose were bleeding and his hat tilted over his eyes. Fortunately, no one saw him, though he imagined in his agony that all Paris was watching him from the sky, the housetops, the windows, and the street. Struve was at breakfast. He had evidently been reading _Pantin_, for it was open before him, and he put a dish of kidneys over the damnable article in a pathetic attempt to hide it as the poet and the painter entered his room, with all the dejection of a couple of cats that have just been washed. “We are going away,” said Gaillard. “Sit down,” lisped Struve, jumping up. “Toto, I am very glad to see you—have a cigar, have a cigarette? Now what is all this nonsense I have heard? Gaillard, for goodness’ sake put your head straight; you are not a lily. Pelisson has been here—I know all this cursed nonsense; he has been let in by old De Nani. I always told him he would; everyone is cursing poor old Pelisson for a fool. Well, then, what matter? it will soon blow over.” “We are going away,” said Toto, taking up Gaillard’s whine; “at least, I am—forever!” “So,” said Struve, lighting a cigarette, “you are going away forever; and when are you coming back? Toto, for goodness’ sake, don’t think that I am joking. I know what Paris is, and for Heaven’s sake don’t go about with that long face! Laugh, laugh, and you are clad in triple brass; no one ever laughs at a man who is laughing—they always laugh with him. Laugh at Pelisson, laugh at De Nani, do as they do at the carnival ball; a jester strikes me with his bauble, I strike Jules, Jules Alphonse, and so it goes on. Don’t take this thing seriously.” “I cannot laugh,” said Toto, looking at his boots with the air of a martyr. “Well, then, smoke.” “Thanks, yes, I will take a cigarette. I want to speak to you; but first I want Auguste to do something for me.” He sat down at the writing table and made out a holograph check for ten thousand francs, and dispatched Gaillard with it to the bank. “Go to Porcheron’s and get a brougham, and come back in it, my dear fellow.” “But your luggage?” “Oh, I will buy things wherever I go.” Gaillard departed, and Toto resumed his seat. “I want to tell you all,” he said. “There is a girl; she brought this mischief upon me, though it was not entirely her fault.” “Oh, these girls!” murmured Struve. “I know they are frightful, but, still, I must do something for this girl.” “Pah! Give her five hundred francs—I know what girls are—and forget her.” “Oh, for the matter of that, she is not—she loves me, I think, in her way—of course she does not know all the mischief she has done: how could she? No matter. I want you to call this afternoon and explain that I am gone away for a while.”