ned your number, I shall have
richly earned the fifty francs M. Fortunat promised me." As well as he
could judge through the windowpane, M. Wilkie was eating his dinner
with an excellent appetite. "Ah!" he exclaimed, not without envy, "these
fighting-cocks take good care of their stomachs. He's there for an hour
at least, and I shall have time to run and swallow a mouthful myself."

So saying, Chupin hastened to a small restaurant in a neighboring
street, and magnificently disbursed the sum of thirty-nine sous. Such
extravagance was unusual on his part, for he had lived very frugally
since he had taken a vow to become rich. Formerly, when he lived from
hand to mouth--to use his own expression--he indulged in cigars and in
absinthe; but now he contented himself with the fare of an anchorite,
drank nothing but water, and only smoked when some one gave him a cigar.
Nor was this any great privation to him, since he gained a penny by
it--and a penny was another grain of sand added to the foundation of his
future wealth. However, this evening he indulged in the extravagance of
a glass of wine, deciding in his own mind that he had fairly earned it.

When he returned to his post in front of the Cafe Riche, M. Wilkie was
no longer alone at his table. He was finishing his coffee in the company
of a man of his own age, who was remarkably good-looking--almost too
good-looking, in fact--and a glance at whom caused Chupin to exclaim:
"What! what! I've seen that face somewhere before--". But he racked his
brain in vain in trying to remember who this newcomer was, in trying to
set a name on this face, which was positively annoying in its classical
beauty, and which he felt convinced had occupied a place among the
phantoms of his past. Irritated beyond endurance by what he termed his
stupidity, he was trying to decide whether he should enter the cafe or
not, when he saw M. Wilkie take his bill from the hands of a waiter,
glance at it, and throw a louis on the table. His companion had drawn
out his pocketbook for the ostensible purpose of paying for the coffee
he had taken; but Wilkie, with a cordial gesture, forbade it, and
made that magnificent, imperious sign to the waiter, which so clearly
implies: "Take nothing! All is paid! Keep the change." Thereupon the
servant gravely retired, more than ever convinced of the fact that
vanity increases the fabulous total of Parisian gratuities by more than
a million francs a year.

"My gallant