Monsieur le Cure had been genuine
poor. The Schnitzel turned to leather in my mouth, the beer seemed
tepid; I left the Emmenthaler untasted. My one idea was to get away from
the room, away from the table where _that_ was seated; and as I fled I
felt Laploshka's reproachful eyes watching the amount that I gave to the
piccolo--out of his two francs. I lunched next day at an expensive
restaurant which I felt sure that the living Laploshka would never have
entered on his own account, and I hoped that the dead Laploshka would
observe the same barriers. I was not mistaken, but as I came out I found
him miserably studying the bill of fare stuck up on the portals. Then he
slowly made his way over to a milk-hall. For the first time in my
experience I missed the charm and gaiety of Vienna life.

After that, in Paris or London or wherever I happened to be, I continued
to see a good deal of Laploshka. If I had a seat in a box at a theatre I
was always conscious of his eyes furtively watching me from the dim
recesses of the gallery. As I turned into my club on a rainy afternoon I
would see him taking inadequate shelter in a doorway opposite. Even if I
indulged in the modest luxury of a penny chair in the Park he generally
confronted me from one of the free benches, never staring at me, but
always elaborately conscious of my presence. My friends began to comment
on my changed looks, and advised me to leave off heaps of things. I
should have liked to have left off Laploshka.

On a certain Sunday--it was probably Easter, for the crush was worse than
ever--I was again wedged into the crowd listening to the music in the
fashionable Paris church, and again the collection-bag was buffeting its
way across the human sea. An English lady behind me was making
ineffectual efforts to convey a coin into the still distant bag, so I
took the money at her request and helped it forward to its destination.
It was a two-franc piece. A swift inspiration came to me, and I merely
dropped my own sou into the bag and slid the silver coin into my pocket.
I had withdrawn Laploshka's two francs from the poor, who should never
have had the legacy. As I backed away from the crowd I heard a woman's
voice say, "I don't believe he put my money in the bag. There are swarms
of people in Paris like that!" But my mind was lighter that it had been
for a long time.

The delicate mission of bestowing the retrieved sum on the deserving rich
still confront