"I hope
I shall find him at his desk! Come, Victor, my boy, you must look
alive!"
However, he could not present himself at the office in the garb he
then wore, and so, much against his will, he went home and changed
his clothes. Then he took a cab at his own expense, and drove
with all possible speed to the main office of the Cab Company, in
the Avenue de Segur. Nevertheless it was already ten o'clock when
he arrived there. He was more fortunate than he had dared to
hope. The man he wanted had charge of a certain department, and
was compelled to return to the office every evening after dinner.
He was there now.
He was a poor devil who, while receiving a salary of fifteen
hundred francs a year, spent a couple of thousand, and utilized
his wits in defending his meagre salary from his creditors. On
perceiving Chupin, he made a wrathful gesture, and his first words
were: "I haven't got a penny."
But Chupin smiled his most genial smile. "What!" said he, "do you
fancy I've come to collect money from you here, and at this hour?
You don't know me. I merely came to ask a favor of you."
The clerk's clouded face brightened. "Since that is the case,
pray take a seat, and tell me how I can serve you," he replied.
"Very well. At nine o'clock in the evening, on the sixteenth of
October, a lady living in the Rue d'Ulm sent to the stand in the
Rue Soufflot for a cab.
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