“But his eyes were so full of sly cunning, and there was such an atmosphere of Paris about the stocky little fourteen-year-old chap, that we would often keep him longer with us, and treat him to a glass of anisette to hear his opinion of the writers whose work he handled.  He was an amusing cross between a tricky little Paris gamin and a real child, and he hit off the characteristics of the various writers with as keen a touch of actuality as he could put into his stories of how many centimes he had won that morning at ‘craps’ from his friend Pierre.  Pierre was another employee of the printing house, Adolphe’s comrade in his study of the mysteries of Paris streets, and now his rival.  They were both in love with the same girl, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the keeper of ‘La Prunelle’ Cafe, and her favor was often the prize of the morning’s game.

“Now and then this rivalry between the two young Parisians would drop into a hand-to-hand fight.  I myself was witness to such a skirmish one day, in front of ‘La Prunelle.’  The rivals pulled each other’s hair mightily while the manuscripts flew about over the pavement, and Virginie, in her short skirts, stood at the door of the cafe and laughed until she seemed about to shake to pieces.

“Pierre was the strongest, and Adolphe came off with a bloody nose.  He gathered up his manuscripts in grim silence and left the battlefield and the still laughing Virginie with an expression of deep anger on his wounded face.

“The following day, when I teased him a little because of his defeat, he smiled a sly smile and remarked: 

“’Yes, but I won a franc from him, the big stupid animal.  And so it was I, after all, who took Virginie out that evening.  We went to the Cafe “Neant,” where I let them put me in the coffin and pretend to be decaying, to amuse her.  She thought it was lots of fun.’

“One morning Lucien had come for me as usual, put me on the divan, and seated himself at his writing table.  He was just putting the last words to his novel, and the table was entirely covered with the scattered leaves, closely written.  I could just see his neck as he sat there, a thin-sinewed, expressive neck.  He bent over his work, blind and deaf for anything else.  I lay there and gazed out over the tops of the trees in the park up into the blue summer sky.  The window on the left side of the desk stood wide open, for it was a warm and sultry day.  I sipped my whisky slowly.  The air was heavy, and thunder threatened in the distance.  After a little while the clouds gathered together, heavy, low-hanging, copper-hued, real thunder clouds, and the trees in the park rustled softly.  The air was stifling, and lay heavy as lead on my breast.

“‘Lucien!’

“Lucien did not hear or see anything, his pen flew over the paper.

“I fell back lazily on my divan.

“Then suddenly, there was a mighty tumult.  A strong gust of wind swept through the street, bending the trees in the gardens quite out of my horizon.  With a crash the right-hand window in the balcony flew wide open, and like a cyclone, the wind swept through, clearing the table in an instant of all the loose sheets of paper that had lain scattered about it.