"
He lay between the ragged sheets; and half an hour crept by.
"Gustave!"
"Well?" said Tricotrin, looking towards the other bed. "Not asleep
yet?"
"I cannot sleep--hunger is gnawing at me."
"Ah, what a relentless realist is this hunger," complained the poet,
"how it destroys one's illusions!"
"Is there nothing to eat in the cupboard?"
"Not a crumb--I am ravenous myself. But I recall a broken cigarette in
my waistcoat pocket; let us cut it in halves!"
They strove, shivering, to appease their pangs by slow whiffs of a
Caporal, and while they supped in this unsatisfactory fashion, there
came an impetuous knocking at the street door.
"It must be that La Coupole has sent you a sack of gold to go on with!"
Tricotrin opined. "Put your head out and see."
"It is Lajeunie," announced the composer, withdrawing from the window
with chattering teeth. "What the devil can he want? I suppose I must go
down and let him in."
"Perhaps we can get some more cigarettes from him," said Tricotrin; "it
might have been worse."
But when the novelist appeared, the first thing he stammered was, "Give
me a cigarette, one of you fellows, or I shall die!"
"Well, then, dictate your last wishes to us!" returned Pitou. "Do you
come here under the impression that the house is a tobacconist's? What
is the matter with you, what is up?" "For three hours," snuffled
Lajeunie, who looked half frozen and kept shuddering violently, "for
three hours I have been pacing the streets, questioning whether I
should break the news to you to-night or not.
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