The other individual was not so good-looking as Monsieur Alfred de Saint-Arthur, but he had not his stupid look; indeed, there was in his eyes a shrewd expression which sometimes turned to mockery. Neither his trousers nor his coat were so exaggerated as his friend's, but all the world did not turn to look at him; he had no fashionable mistress upon whom he squandered money, but he strove to be on the best terms with the mistresses of his friends; he did not waste his fortune, because he had none, and he had not left his place, because he had never had any.
However, as one must needs try, in society, to have some talent, some profession, or some rank, in default of fortune, Jéricourt had become an author. He had not stopped to consider whether he had the necessary vocation and intellect for that; he had said to himself: "I propose to be an author;" and as one ordinarily effects his purpose by dint of perseverance and unbounded self-assurance, Jéricourt, by persistently frequenting the café where the young men who write for the stage ordinarily gather, had insinuated himself among them, playing billiards with one, dominoes with another; he had become one of their intimates, and then had begun to talk of plays, of plots, of original ideas which he claimed to have had; and when someone would say to him:
"That is old, that subject has already been treated fifty times!" he would exclaim:
"I don't see why it shouldn't be treated fifty-one times! A thing that has succeeded so often will succeed again. It is mere folly to try to do something new; one risks failure; whereas, by following roads already marked out, one is certain to arrive without hindrance."
Jéricourt found people of his opinion; and thus it was that he became an author by revamping what others had done before him. And he ended by believing himself to be an inventor, a man of genius, and by making idiots of the type of his friend Saint-Arthur believe it also. The number of fools is infinite!
"Well, my pretty flower girl, I must have a wonderful, a stupendous bouquet!" said Alfred, halting in front of Violette; "it's for a lady who knows what's what, and who has already had the most beautiful bouquets that are made in Paris,--isn't that so, Jéricourt?--_Sapristi!_ I haven't a cigar; Jéricourt, my dear fellow, make me a cigarette, will you?"