' we can be their guardian," replied
Cerizet, sententiously. "In point of fact, we get a fortune and not a
wife."

"Well," said Dutocq, "that's one way to look at it."

"If you are willing," said Cerizet, "let us go and take our coffee
somewhere else. This dinner has turned out so foolishly that I want to
get out of this room, where there's no air." He rang for the waiter.
"Garcon!" he said, "the bill."

"Monsieur, it is paid."

"Paid! by whom?"

"By the gentleman who just went out."

"But this is outrageous," cried Cerizet. "I ordered the dinner, and you
allow some one else to pay for it!"

"It wasn't I, monsieur," said the waiter; "the gentleman went and paid
the 'dame du comptoir'; she must have thought it was arranged between
you. Besides, it is not so uncommon for gentlemen to have friendly
disputes about paying."

"That's enough," said Cerizet, dismissing the waiter.

"Won't these gentlemen take their coffee?--it is paid for," said the man
before he left the room.

"A good reason for not taking it," replied Cerizet, angrily. "It is
really inconceivable that in a house of this kind such an egregious
blunder should be committed. What do you think of such insolence?" he
added, when the waiter had left the room.

"Bah!" exclaimed Dutocq, taking his hat, "it is a schoolboy proceeding;
he wanted to show he had money; it is easy to see he never had any
before."

"No, no! that's not it," said Cerizet; "he meant to mark the rupture. 'I
will not owe you even a dinner,' is what he says to me."

"But, after all," said Dutocq, "this banquet was given to celebrate your
enthronement as principal tenant of the grand house. Well, he has failed
to get you the lease, and I can understand that his conscience was
uneasy at letting you pay for a dinner which, like those notes of mine,
were an 'obligation without cause.'"

Cerizet made no reply to this malicious observation. They had reached
the counter where reigned the dame who had permitted the improper
payment, and, for the sake of his dignity, the usurer thought it proper
to make a fuss. After which the two men departed, and the copying-clerk
took his employer to a low coffee-house in the Passage du Saumon.
There Cerizet recovered his good-humor; he was like a fish out of water
suddenly returned to his native element; for he had reached that state
of degradation when he felt ill at ease in places frequented by good
society; and it was with a sort of sensuous plea