gry with me."

"Not at all. I am sorry that you have wounded Brigard--nothing more."

"That is too much, because I have a sincere esteem, a real friendship
for you, if you will permit me to say so."

But Glady, apparently, did not desire the conversation to take this
turn.

"I think this is an empty cab," he said, as a fiacre approached them.

"No," replied Saniel, "I see the light of a cigar through the
windowpane."

Glady made a slight gesture of impatience that was not lost upon Saniel,
who was expecting some such demonstration.

Rich, and frequenting the society of poor men, Glady lived in dread of
borrowers. It was enough for any man to appear to wish to talk to him
privately to make him believe that he was going to ask for fifty louis
or twenty francs; so often was this the case that every friend or
comrade was an enemy against whom he must defend his purse. And so he
lay in wait as if expecting some one to spring upon him, his eyes open,
his ears listening, and his hands in his pockets. This explains his
attitude toward Saniel, in whom he scented a demand for money, and
was the reason for his attempt to escape by taking a cab. But luck was
against him, and he tried to decline the unspoken request in another
way.

"Do not be surprised," he said, with the volubility with which a man
speaks when he does not wish to give his companion a chance to say a
word, "that I was pained to see Brigard take seriously an argument that
evidently was not directed against him."

"Neither against him nor against his ideas."

"I know that; you do not need to defend yourself. But I have so much
friendship, so much esteem and respect for Brigard that everything that
touches him affects me. And how could it be otherwise when one knows his
value, and what a man he is? This life of mediocrity that he lives, in
order to be free, is it not admirable? What a beautiful example!"

"Not every one can follow it."

"You think that one cannot be contented with ten francs a day?"

"I mean that not every one has the chance to make ten francs a day."

The vague fears of Glady became definite at these words. They had walked
down the Rue Ferou and reached the Place St. Sulpice.

"I think that at last I am going to find a cab," he said, precipitately.

But this hope was not realized; there was not a single cab at the
station, and he was forced to submit to the assault from Saniel.

And Saniel began:

"You are compelled to walk with