Nevertheless,
my poor friend must have spent a few sous at the barber's, for he was
neatly shaved; and his hair, gathered behind his head with a comb and
powdered carefully, smelt of pomade. I saw two chains hanging down on
his breeches,--two rusty steel chains,--but no appearance of a watch
in his pocket. I tell you all these details, as they come to me," said
Monsieur Alain; "I seldom think of this matter now; but when I do, all
the particulars come vividly before me."

He paused a moment and then resumed:--

"It was winter, and Mongenod evidently had no cloak; for I noticed that
several lumps of snow, which must have dropped from the roofs as he
walked along, were sticking to the collar of his coat. When he took off
his rabbit-skin gloves, and I saw his right hand, I noticed the signs
of labor, and toilsome labor, too. Now his father, the advocate of the
Grand Council, had left him some property,--about five or six thousand
francs a year. I saw at once that he had come to me to borrow money.
I had, in a secret hiding-place, two hundred louis d'or,--an enormous
hoard at that time; for they were worth I couldn't now tell you how many
hundred thousand francs in assignats. Mongenod and I had studied at
the same collage,--that of Grassins,--and we had met again in the same
law-office,--that of Bordin,--a truly honest man. When you have spent
your boyhood and played your youthful pranks with the same comrade, the
sympathy between you and him has something sacred about it; his voice,
his glance, stir certain chords in your heart which only vibrate
under the memories that he brings back. Even if you have had cause of
complaint against such a comrade, the rights of the friendship between
you can never be effaced. But there had never been the slightest jar
between us two. At the death of his father, in 1787, Mongenod was left
richer than I. Though I had never borrowed money from him, I owed him
pleasures which my father's economy denied me. Without my generous
comrade I should never had seen the first representation of the
'Marriage of Figaro.' Mongenod was what was called in those days a
charming cavalier; he was very gallant. Sometimes I blamed him for his
facile way of making intimacies and his too great amiability. His purse
opened freely; he lived in a free-handed way; he would serve a man as
second having only seen him twice. Good God! how you send me back to
the days and the ways of my youth!" said the worthy man, wit