and Barty insisted that in future they should always mess
together at his expense till better days--and they did.

But Barty found that his own money was just giving out, and wrote to
his bankers in London for more. Somehow it didn't arrive for nearly
a week; and they knew at last what it was to dine for five sous each
(2-1/2_d._)--with loss of appetite just before the meal instead of
after.

Of course Barty might very well have pawned his watch or his
scarf-pin; but whatever trinkets he possessed had been given him by
his beloved Lady Archibald--everything pawnable he had in the world,
even his guitar! And he could not bear the idea of taking them to
the "Mont de Piete."

So he was well pleased one Sunday morning when his remittance
arrived, and he went in search of his friend, that they might
compensate themselves for a week's abstinence by a famous dejeuner.
But Bonzig was not to be found; and Barty spent that day alone, and
Gorged in solitude and guzzled in silence--moult tristement, a
l'anglaise.

He was aroused from his first sleep that night by the irruption of
Bonzig in a tremendous state of excitement. It seems that a certain
Baron (whose name I've forgotten), and whose little son the ex-usher
had once coached in early Latin and Greek, had written, begging him
to call and see him at his chateau near Melun; that Bonzig had
walked there that very day--thirty miles; and found the Baron was
leaving next morning for a villa he possessed near Etretat, and
wished him to join him there the day after, and stay with him for a
couple of months--to coach his son in more classics for a couple of
hours in the forenoon.

Bonzig was to dispose of the rest of his time as he liked, except
that he was commissioned to paint six "marines" for the baronial
dining-room; and the Baron had most considerately given him four
hundred francs in advance!

"So, then, to-morrow afternoon at six, my dear Josselin, you dine
with _me_, for once--not in the Passage Choiseul this time, good as
it is there! But at Babet's, en plein Palais Royal! un jour de
separation, vous comprenez! the dinner will be good, I promise you:
a calf's head a la vinaigrette--they are famous for that, at
Babet's--and for their Pauillac and their St.-Estephe; at least, I'm
told so! nous en ferons l'experience.... And now I bid you
good-night, as I have to be up before the day--so many things to buy
and settle and arrange--first of all to procure myself a 'maillo