es, and that this
man could not take ten paces without his having to stop to pull them up
and to readjust them. Did he wear a vest? The mere thought of his boots
and that which they enveloped filled me with horror. The frayed cuffs
were as perfectly black at the edges as were his nails.

As soon as I had sat down near him, this queer creature said to me in a
tranquil tone of voice:

"How goes it with you?"

I turned sharply round to him and closely scanned his features, whereupon
he continued:

"I see you do not recognize me."

"No, I do not."

"Des Barrets."

I was stupefied. It was Count Jean des Barrets, my old college chum.

I seized him by the hand, and was so dumbfounded that I could find
nothing to say. I, at length, managed to stammer out:

"And you, how goes it with yourself?"

He responded placidly:

"With me? Just as I like."

He became silent. I wanted to be friendly, and I selected this phrase:

"What are you doing now?"

"You see what I am doing," he answered, quite resignedly.

I felt my face getting red. I insisted:

"But every day?"

"Every day is alike to me," was his response accompanied with a thick
puff of tobacco smoke.

He then tapped on the top of the marble table with a sou, to attract the
attention of the waiter, and called out:

"Waiter, two 'bocks.'"

A voice in the distance repeated:

"Two bocks, instead of four."

Another voice, more distant still, shouted out:

"Here they are, sir, here they are."

Immediately there appeared a man with a white apron, carrying two
"bocks," which he sat down foaming on the table, the spouts facing over
the edge, on to the sandy floor.

Des Barrets emptied his glass at a single draught and replaced it on the
table. He next asked:

"What is there new?"

"I know of nothing new, worth mentioning, really," I stammered:

"But nothing has grown old, for me; I am a commercial man."

In an equable tone of voice, he said;

"Indeed ... does that amuse you?"

"No, but what do you mean to assert? Surely you must do something!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I only mean, how do you pass your time!"

"What's the use of occupying myself with anything. For my part, I do
nothing at all, as you see, never anything. When one has not got a sou
one can understand why one has to go to work. What is the good of
working? Do you work for yourself, or for others? If you work for
yourself you do it for your own amusement, which is all righ